Jeremy Tyler came to Haifa, Israel — a scenic city overlooking the Mediterranean — as a trailblazer. As the first US basketball player to skip his senior year of high school to play professionally abroad, Tyler signed a US$140,000 deal to play for Maccabi Haifa this year. The grand plan revolves around him being a top pick, if not the top pick, in the 2011 NBA draft.
“My mission,” he said, “is to shake David Stern’s hand.”
But after nearly three months of professional basketball in Israel’s top division, Tyler is at a crossroads. Caught in a clash of cultures, distractions and agendas, he appears to be worlds away from a draft-night handshake with Stern, the NBA commissioner.
His coach calls him lazy and out of shape. The team captain says he is soft. His teammates say he needs to learn to shut up and show up on time. He has no friends on the team. In extensive interviews with Tyler, his teammates, coaches, his father and advisers, the consensus is that he is so naive and immature that he has no idea how naive and immature he is.
“The question is whether he’ll take responsibility of his career,” Haifa coach Avi Ashkenazi said. “If he thinks he’s going to be in the NBA because his name is Jeremy Tyler and he was a very good high school player, he will not be.”
It is too early to declare Tyler a bust, but it is safe to say that he has transformed from a can’t-miss prospect into a project.
Tyler, 18, said he was still acclimating to a new culture and a more precise style of basketball. The plan for Tyler’s older brother to move to Haifa never materialized.
To help him adjust, the Wasserman Media Group sent one of Tyler’s agents, Makhtar Ndiaye, to Israel late last month for an extended stay to help him focus.
Tyler still talks openly about retiring with US$200 million in the bank after a 15-year NBA career. He also talks about modeling, the documentary being made about him, and how he and his girlfriend, Erin Wright, the daughter of the rapper Eazy-E, will grow up to be a US power couple.
But he scored just 1 point in his first two games, and his coach was baffled that a player with such great potential could arrive without basic skills like boxing out and rotating on defense. Tyler is lost, Ashkenazi said, if he cannot do what he does best: taking the ball to the rim and dunking.
Jason Rich, a US teammate who was a standout at Florida State, said: “It’s hard to say what exactly is that thing that’s going to wake him up.”
Tyler, a 211cm center considered the best American big man since Greg Oden, cried when leaving the US. He missed his first flight because he did not know he needed his passport. He left the locker room in tears after playing just 10 minutes in his first game.
The Milwaukee Bucks rookie Brandon Jennings skipped college and had rocky moments while playing last season in Rome. But they were nothing compared with Tyler’s. Jennings has thrived in the NBA, in part humbled and hardened by his experience abroad.
“All he had to do was go and do what Brandon did, shut up and go learn,” said Sonny Vaccaro, an adviser to Tyler and Jennings. “He obviously isn’t doing that. He thinks that he’s Kevin Garnett.”
Haifa’s American owner, Jeffrey Rosen, signed him in part to help make Maccabi Haifa the preferred destination for American prodigies who want to skip college.
“Jeremy gives us a brand and recognition, globally and particularly in the US, for young players who say, ‘College is not for me, and I know that Haifa is a place where I can get a salary and get trained,’” Rosen said, stressing that this was not a one-time move. “Jeremy is not a circus act.”
Stuck between the prodigy’s path and the owner’s vision is Ashkenazi, a hard-nosed Israeli coach unaccustomed to handling the attitude, ego and self-importance of teenage American stars.
“I’m in a terrible position,” Ashkenazi said. “But I’m a worker and employee of Mr. Jeff Rosen. If it’s important to him, our commitment is for that.”
For missing a workout and showing up late to an interview, Tyler was fined US$1,000, the largest penalty the team had levied in three years. Tyler said he would be fined US$1,000 for each subsequent violation.
“These are all men out here,” Rich said. “The way you earn respect is by keeping your mouth shut and going to work and being a professional.”
At his apartment, Tyler said, neighbors have called the police three times with complaints that he was playing music too loud.
Discussing his problems, Tyler tended to point fingers. He said his teammates should treat him like a man. Asked about his reluctance to work and listen to his coaches, he said he was skeptical of their knowledge and methods. Tyler, the captain and focus of his high school’s offense, said he was still adjusting to a new role.
“If you take me from when I first got off the plane,” he said, “I have changed and developed and matured so much.”
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