Pro Career
Halperin played in the Maccabi Tel Aviv juniors since he was 8 years old. After finishing high school Halperin had a tough time fitting in with the senior club Maccabi Tel Aviv, since the team had so many star players, such as Ariel McDonald and Anthony Parker.
Halperin sat on the bench for the Maccabi Tel Aviv team until 2005. He got an offer from Union Olimpija in Ljubljana and emerged as a star in the 2005–06 season, winning the Slovenian League three-point competition and putting up big numbers for Olimpija both in the Slovenian League and in the Euroleague.
He won the Slovenian National Cup and the Slovenian Championship with Union Olimpija after completing the final series in the Slovenian playoffs (3–2 in the final over Geoplin Slovan).
Halperin was projected to be the first Israeli in the NBA. His 2006 NBA Draft placement (53rd overall) was not enough to secure him a guaranteed NBA contract, so he opted to return to Israel. There, he spent the 2006–07 season with Maccabi Tel Aviv and underachieved that season. In the 2007–08 season he led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Final of the Euroleague Final Four in Madrid and earned an All-Euroleague Second Team selection.
On June 15, 2008, Halperin signed a 3 year, 3 million euro deal with Olympiacos Piraeus, where he joined his former Maccabi teammate Nikola Vujčić. In 2011 he left Olympiacos Piraeus and on July 25, 2011, Halperin signed a two-year contract with BC Spartak Saint Petersburg.
Read more about this topic: Yotam Halperin
Famous quotes containing the words pro and/or career:
“The upbeat lawyer/negotiator of preadolescence has become a real pro by now—cynical, shrewd, a tough cookie. You’re constantly embroiled in a match of wits. You’re exhausted.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
““Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)