Ryan Turell, Orthodox Jewish pro basketball player, will take talents to Israel

Turell spent his first two seasons in the NBA G League

Ryan Turell played two seasons with the Motor City Cruise in the NBA’s G League. (Courtesy of Motor City Cruise)

By Louis Keene July 3, 2024

Ryan Turell, who in 2022 became the first Sabbath-observant Jew signed by an NBA team, will continue his professional basketball career in Israel after two seasons in the NBA’s G League.

Turell, 25, signed with Ironi Nes Ziyyona, a team in the Israeli league’s first division, the team announced Wednesday. Nes Ziyyona, which plays in a town of the same name about 15 miles south of Tel Aviv, finished near the middle of the league’s standings last season. Terms of the contract were not announced.

“I’m very excited and honored to be a part of Ironi Ness Ziona, and can’t wait to start playing,” Turell said in a team statement. “It’s always been a dream of mine to play in Israel, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to do it with Ness Ziona.”

As the 6-foot-7 forward led the nation in scoring as a senior at Yeshiva University, Turell expressed his dream to be the first Orthodox Jewish NBA player. It was viewed as a longshot not only because Turell played in NCAA’s Division III, which rarely produces NBA talent, but also because he planned to observe the Sabbath prohibition against driving and flying. He was not selected in the 2022 NBA draft.

But the Detroit Pistons, whose owner, Tom Gores, is Jewish, picked Turell 27th in the subsequent G League draft and signed him to a contract with their minor league affiliate, Motor City Cruise. And the team took special measures to accommodate his observance, providing kosher meals, hotel rooms walking distance from opposing teams’ arenas and separate transportation for him when the team traveled on Sabbath.

On Nov. 7, 2022, Turell made his G League debut wearing a Detroit Pistons yarmulke, and Orthodox fans flocked to his games wherever he played. He scored a career-high 34 points in March of this year. But he never found a steady role in the Cruise’s playing rotation. In 54 games over two professional seasons, he averaged 4.5 points in 13.3 minutes.

Turell was the pioneer of a small cohort of Orthodox athletes striving for major American sports leagues. At Major League Baseball’s Single-A level, 20-year-old right-hander Jacob Steinmetz — a former third-round draft pick and the son of Turell’s coach at YU — does not pitch on Shabbat.

Hailing the Turell signing, Ness Ziona head coach Amit Sherf implied that his new forward plans to make aliyah.

“I am confident that his basketball intelligence will help him quickly adapt to the European game,” Sherf said, referring to Israel’s adoption of European basketball rules. “He will provide us with shooting and athleticism at the guard/forward positions, and he will be a key part of our strong and diverse Israeli core this season.”

Louis Keene is a reporter for the Forward. His work has also been published in The New York Times, New York magazine and Vice. He is based in Los Angeles.

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