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Wed., December 12, 2007 Tevet 3, 5768

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Basketball / Batista is a big surprise for Maccabi Tel Aviv

By Jerry Mittleman

Tags: Euroleague, Esteban Batista

When Maccabi Tel Aviv star center Nikola Vujcic went down with a serious injury a month ago, many saw it as a potentially fatal blow to the already struggling team's Euroleague season. Instead, Vujcic's misfortune gave Maccabi and Israeli fans a chance to discover Esteban Batista.

Batista is undoubtedly the biggest surprise of Maccabi's two-month-old season, and is one of the reasons that the blue and yellow have won six out of their last seven contests in combined Euroleague and Premier League action, going into tonight's game against Hapoel Holon. Batista sat out against Bnei Hasharon last Sunday, when Maccabi suffered its only defeat during this run.

Although the 2.08-meter, 122-kilogram Batista played for the NBA's Atlanta Hawks for the past two seasons, he remained relatively unknown outside of his native Uruguay. The 24-year-old Batista averaged 1.7 points and just seven minutes per game with the Hawks, and is probably remembered simply for being the first player from his country to appear in the NBA.

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People rarely associate basketball with Uruguay, but "basketball is actually the second most popular sport in Uruguay behind soccer, and my playing in the NBA was an important achievement for basketball there," said Batista. Uruguay placed sixth in this summer's FIBA Americas Championships and Batista paced the squad with 20.8 points and 12.4 rebounds a game.

When Maccabi signed Batista on October 16, the same day he was released from the Boston Celtics' preseason camp, the club thought it was signing another "big body" who would provide frontline depth. Little did the Maccabi management know it was signing a player who would help save the season.

Rarely used before Vujcic's injury, Batista has done an excellent job of filling some of the void left by the big Croatian's absence, and has become a valuable member of Maccabi's rotation. Since getting additional playing time, Batista has demonstrated soft hands, good rebounding skills and a fine sense for placing himself around the basket.

In last Thursday's victory over Aris Thessaloniki, Batista led Maccabi with five assists, four of them from under the basket in the second quarter to Terrence Morris, and in Maccabi's last five Euroleague contests, including four victories, Batista has averaged close to nine points and five rebounds a game in only 15 minutes of action.

For Maccabi head coach Oded Katash, Batista's place in the team's rotation is no longer a stop-gap measure, and his plans for him go well beyond Vujcic's return.

"Esteban is a skilled player, one of the best rebounders I've seen in a while, and I only expect him to get better," said Katash. "Once he becomes more accustomed to the Euroleague, he could become one of the league's best players within a year or two."

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