Yeshiva’s Ryan Turell weighing ‘options’ after injury dims draft hopes
His father said he is weighing offers from Israeli professional teams and the G League, the NBA’s developmental league
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Louis Keene June 23, 2022
When Ryan Turell, the Yeshiva University basketball legend trying to become the first Sabbath-observant player in the NBA, was not picked in Thursday’s NBA Draft, it did not come as a surprise to most observers.
Turell, who was named the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Division III player of the year after leading the nation in scoring, went undrafted in all of the two-round mock drafts published this week by ESPN, CBS Sports, SB Nation, and NBA.com.
Due to an injury Turell reportedly sustained during a workout in May, NBA teams were unable to see the Los Angeles-area native in competition against top flight talent. He had been scheduled to appear at the NBA G League combine, a scouting event for prospects not invited to the NBA Draft showcase.
His father, Brad Turell, told the Forward that Ryan was weighing offers from Israeli professional teams and the G League, the NBA’s developmental league.
“He has options,” Brad Turell said in a Twitter message to the Forward.
Little is known about the injury — Adam Zagoria, a basketball reporter who broke the news on Twitter, initially called it “minor,” without offering specifics. But Turell’s father said Ryan was unlikely to be at full strength in time for the NBA’s Summer League, which is held in Las Vegas in mid-July.
Before he got hurt, the 6’7” wing held his own against Division I’s top college seniors at the Portsmouth Invitational, a showcase in April.
Turell, who averaged 27.1 points per game for Yeshiva last season as the Maccabees stretched their multiseason win streak to 50 games, has said that he would play in games that fell on Friday nights and Saturdays.
But he’s remained steadfast in his unwillingness to give up Sabbath observance — even if doing so would increase his NBA chances. In an interview with the basketball website HoopsHype, Turell said that if back-to-back games on Shabbat fell in different cities, he would ask his future team to tell him which game it wanted him available for.
“Being the first Orthodox Jew in the NBA would mean the world to me, and a dream come true, God willing,” he told ESPN’s Jonathan Givony when he declared for the draft in March, shortly after YU’s season ended. “But, just as importantly, it would mean the world to others that never saw this as a possibility.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
