Maccabi Tel Aviv just began its Euroleague season last week week with a pair of games as it fell 101-94 to Paris Basket at itse home-away-from-home in Belgrade, Serbia on Friday night after having lost 85-78 to Anadolu EFES earlier in the week in an action-packed opening to the new continental campaign.
The yellow-and-blue made wholesale changes for the new season and changed up a large portion of the roster. One of the most interesting newcomers is big man Marcio Santos, who hails from Brazil and played this past season in Germany with Ulm. He has averaged seven points a game in 14+ minutes on the floor per contest over Maccabi’s early 0-2 European start.
Just ahead of Friday’s tipoff, The Jerusalem Post sat down with the 22-year-old Santos at Yad Eliyahu to learn what the club’s brand new signing will be able to do for Oded Katash’s squad with the goal of bringing Euroleague glory back to Tel Aviv.
“I’m really excited,” Santos began. “It’s a pleasure to be playing in the Euroleague for my first season after coming here following a great year we had in Germany, so I’m really excited and happy to be here.”
Santos grew up in a sports family and tried his hand at a number of them back in Brazil.
“I started playing sports because of my family. I have a family of sports, everybody plays their own type of sport like soccer, volleyball and basketball, so I tried everything and I found myself in basketball and I started playing at eight years old. I began on a small team and then moved up to bigger ones. So it’s similar to what I was able to do last season until now as I went to Germany and this year I’m here with Maccabi.”
As a youth, Santos really emulated one of the greats of the game in Anthony Davis.
“He’s one of the 4-5s who can play, run, shoot and do everything on the court.”
Santos quickly moved up the ranks and found himself making his professional debut at just 15 years old.
“It’s pretty cool. My first game really was at 15 and this was pretty cool because in Brazil you usually start early as a pro but not that early. This helped me a lot to grow my game and I was able to learn a lot of things when I was younger which allowed me to have more opportunities.”
Having made his debut back in the 2018/19 season with Franca in Brazil, Santos experienced plenty of success and won a number of titles during his six seasons with the club.
“We won a lot of titles over there and all of them are great. Every time we won a title it’s always great to be champions and we also won the FIBA Intercontinental Cup which is a big one that has G-League teams and teams from Spain play in.”
After a successful run with Franca, Santos decided that time was ripe to head across the Atlantic and make the next jump in his career as he joined Ulmin Germany.
“It was pretty cool. It was my first year overseas out of Brazil and everything and of course we had some difficult things to adapt to like the weather, food and people, being away from your family and home. I cannot say that it was easy, but I was expecting worse. I feel like I adapted myself pretty quickly and well.”
Ulm made the finals of the BBL in Germany but came up short in the decisive fifth game of the series against eventual champion Bayern Munich. However, the season was a smashing success for the club.
'We had a great season'
“We had a great season,” Santos said. “We were not supposed to be in the finals and we were also not supposed to almost win the series against Munich in five games. We understood that we lost because of our own mistakes, but all in all we had a great season where everybody knew their role on the team and played their best basketball.”
Santos was a teammate in Ulm with Israeli guard Ben Saraf who was selected by the Brooklyn Nets in the most recent NBA Draft.
“He had a great year. We were always playing together and hanging out together on and off the court. He’s a nice kid and I hope he’s doing well in the NBA; he has a great opportunity over there. We had some good chemistry on the court and just like me, he loves karaoke. He always told us that he loves to sing.”
Early on during the season, Ulm headed to the United States for an exhibition game with the Portland Trail Blazers, “It’s always cool playing against NBA teams, I have done it before with Franca in Brazil and this was the second time. It’s nice, you can fly to the US and see your level against the guys who are all in the NBA, so it’s always good to be there and compete.”
Santos went undrafted but won’t completely close the door on the NBA.
“Right now I think I’m at the highest level in Europe, the Euroleague, so if the NBA comes it’s always a good thing. You want to be there, but it’s not like when I was younger and I said that ‘I want to be in the NBA, this is all I need.’ We work for now. We are now working for Maccabi and here to win and grow and if something comes from the NBA, then the door is always open.”
It’s never easy to sign with a Euroleague team, but Maccabi came calling and Santos knew that heading to Israel would be a no-brainer, especially when Saraf told him about all of the great aspects of the Holy Land.
“I asked Ben before I came here and before signing. He said it was a great team and that I should come. He told me it’s a great country, the weather is good and the beach is close to everything. I think the offer came to my agent of course and he told me that we have a meeting with Maccabi and we talked to the General Manager Claudio Coldebella. I can’t say I was totally surprised, I expected some good offers, but it’s Maccabi so it’s always surprising.”
Due to the ongoing war, Santos wanted to make sure that he was fine with the decision to come to the country.
“There was a lot of talk because of the war, the past and everything that was going on. I just needed to make sure that it’s safe and if my family will be happy here and everyone will be safe here. That’s the most important thing.”
Santos has been able to integrate into the team throughout the preseason, first by playing the bulk of minutes when Maccabi’s other bigs Roman Sorkin and Jaylen Hoard were playing in the EuroBasket and now learning how to play with them as they have returned.
“I feel like we’ve got a really good team, good chemistry, everybody is talking and trying to improve every day, we are working hard. Now with Roman and Jaylen coming back it would help us a lot, because they were here last year so they can help us to improve more.”
Katash is known as a players’ coach, which is what Santos has seen so far.
“He’s a nice coach and a great one. He’s always trying to improve, seeing the little details and what we need to do better. Even the small things, he’s always trying to catch you with better ways to do things.”
Santos can play both the center and power forward positions and has a good shot from beyond the arc, which is helpful on many levels both for him personally and for the team.
“I can play both spots and it doesn’t really matter – I am willing to do what the team needs. I think this can be a key and being able to shoot from deep helps a lot. You can open the court, stretch the floor. If you can do a little bit of everything it’s always good.”
When the Tel Aviv derby will be played this week, Santos will tip-off against his fellow Brazilian Bruno Caboclo.
“That will be fun. Bruno is my guy, we played on the national team together and we are friends. We know about the rivalry between Maccabi and Hapoel, but we are friends. On the court this doesn’t really matter, everybody is fighting for themselves and their teams and trying to win.”
As for goals, Santos isn’t shying away from anything.
“Personally, it’s just to give my best all year and in every one of the games. As a team just win the most games we can win, try to go to the Final Four, win the Israeli championship and everything and of course win the Euroleague.”
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