Maccabi Tel Aviv has officially announced the return of Shane Hunter to the roster. The naturalized big man, who completed a loan spell at Legia Warsaw, is under a three-year deal with the club, and will be part of a 16-player roster built by Oded Kattash ahead of the upcoming season.
Hunter returns to Maccabi with an excellent record in Europe - in two years he won the Swedish championship and the Polish championship, serving in both cases as one of the best frontcourt players in the league. Now he will try to break his way into the Yellows' roster, and it is not going to be simple.
Two clear obstacles stand before Hunter. The first is the congestion in the frontcourt positions. Aside from Hunter, Maccabi has at least three other players who can play the 5 position, prior to the return of TJ Leaf from injury. While Leaf's injury provides Hunter an opportunity to prove himself during preparations, it remains uncertain how much playing time he will secure once the full squad integrates, but at a stage when the team wants to integrate the various pieces, it is doubtful whether this will be a significant opportunity.
The second obstacle concerns his status as a newly naturalized player. At Maccabi there is another player with this status - Will Rayman, and according to league regulations the two cannot be registered in the league simultaneously.
The Yellows are working behind the scenes to submit a request to the exceptions committee to try and grant Rayman the status of a veteran naturalized player, since he played in Israel for four full seasons, though the problem is that in the middle he moved for one season to France. The Yellows hope that the request will be accepted and Rayman will receive a status that will also allow Hunter to play.
"He is supposed to give us versatility in the roster and ease the load on some of the players," Maccabi sources said of Hunter. "He is a quality player who is good enough to play in the league and perhaps even get an opportunity this season in the EuroLeague. Less load at certain stages of the season is a very important thing to meet all our goals."