Curtis Kelly: Professional Basketball Star, Champion

Curtis Kelly’s Kansas State career was both brilliant and maddening, often within the same game–sometimes within the same minute of that game. But he seems now to have put that frustrating dichotomy behind him, leading Hapoel Tel Aviv–his Israeli National League team–to a league championship.

This new epoch in Kelly’s career began with a phone call, in September of last year. Hapoel Tel Aviv had just released another American, Tracy Smith, due to difficulty adjusting to the Israeli way of life. Would Kelly be willing to join the team, in time for the upcoming season?

There was never any doubt. Basketball has been the pivot point of Kelly’s life for many years now. He’s simply not willing to let that go yet. Hapoel T-A is certainly glad of it.

Hapoel T-A is a team that prior to this season, had fallen on difficult times. The professional basketball system in Israel is organized far differently than the National Basketball Association is in the United States. It is formatted in much the same way as European Football (soccer), with divisions, within which teams are relegated (demoted) and promoted. After being relegated to the second-division six years ago, Hapoel T-A had not returned to the Premier League.

That changed this season, and Curtis Kelly was a big reason why. After being signed as a replacement, Kelly (who turned 24 last month) earned a starting spot. He immediately justified coach Erez Edelshtein’s decision to start him, finishing as the team’s leading scorer, with an average of 16.0 points per game, on 62% field goal shooting. Kelly also averaged 8.2 rebounds per game, and led the league in blocked shots, with 2.3 per game.

In his final game of the season–a season that saw Hapoel T-A finish 22-4, after the previously-discussed lack of success–Curtis Kelly played a tremendous game. He led the team to an 83-56 blowout victory over Maccabi Beer-Yacov, in the fourth and deciding game of the five-game series. Kelly led the team in scoring with 19 points (9-10 from the field), pulling down 4 rebounds, and blocking 3 shots, in only 22 minutes of action. He even managed to dish out two assists, to go with an equal number of steals.

Curtis Kelly’s time at Kansas State will be remembered for both highs (the run to the Elite Eight in 2010) and lows (Dillard’s 2011, and some on-court inconsistency). With that said, however, he has certainly begun the task of establishing himself in the overseas professional basketball ranks.  He will be competing in the highest level of Israeli basketball next season, and his professional basketball future looks bright.

Being a catalyst in a championship season will do that for you.