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Portland Trail Blazers All-Star-in-waiting Deni Avdija is riding high through the 2025-26 NBA season. 26 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists per game will bring plenty of notice and praise. But the journey from Point A to Point ASG wasn’t easy for the 6’8 do-everything player. Avdija came up through the international ranks in his home country of Israel, where his talent and young age put a mark on his back. That’s the story that Jason Quick of The Athletic told today in an extensive biographical piece on Portland’s star [subscription required]. The piece is the usual mix of enchanting, dramatic Quick prose elevating homespun, personal stories. Of Avdija’s trials as a youth, Quick writes: Every day included either coaches yelling at him or players bullying him with bumps, elbows and pushes. “I knew his potential, and because of that, I wanted to make it tough on him,” said Maccabi’s Oded Shalom, who coached Avdija on his Under-15 and Under-16 teams. “I wanted to make his life hard.” Shalom had older and bigger kids guard Avdija. When he played for the senior Maccabi teams, Avdija said coaches cursed at him. Frustrated, he would often return home, retreat to his room and cry. “It brought down my joy for playing the game, because everybody saw me as that guy with potential who hasn’t blossomed yet,” Avdija said. “I had all that pressure in every workout, in every game, to prove myself.”Deni Avdija (10) being coached by Oded Shalom with his Maccabi Tel Aviv U-16 team.Photo courtesy Oded Shalom At home, there was little sympathy. His father, Zufer, is what Avdija describes as “a hard-nosed, old-school Balkan.” In his day, he was a 6-foot-8 forward for the Yugoslavian national team who later played in the Israeli professional league. “He’s a ‘back-in-the-day, we-ran-up-mountains’ type of guy, and he tried to get me to be like that,” Avdija said of his father. His mother, Sharon, is an Israeli who was a standout runner who also played basketball. She is more nurturing than Zufer, but also carries expectations of excellence in competition. “Car rides home had a lot of criticism, so every game was emotional, and it just kind of drained me,” he said.The teasing. The cursing. The criticism. The doubts. They cut him, but never pierced him. Instead, he formed a layer of protection that he compared to a callus. “It all made me tough — like, really, really tough,” Avdija said. “You know how you run a lot and your feet start to get thick skin on them? It was like that. The more I would hear (criticisms), the more I would think, ‘This is nothing.’ I had been dealing with it so much that I got to a point where it was like, ‘I don’t care.’” Quick also relays that Avdija had a hard time finding a fit in Portland after the Washington Wizards traded him there in 2024. Now-suspended Head Coach Chauncey Billups simplified Avdija’s assignment to: rebound, run, and make something happen, which unlocked his potential. The article delves into Avdija’s reflections on his home country of Israel—including his homesickness for the land in which he grew—and the forward’s uncomfortable relationship with political and social media demands made upon him. “I’m an athlete. I don’t really get into politics, because it’s not my job,” Avdija said. “I obviously stand for my country, because that’s where I’m from. It’s frustrating to see all the hate. Like, I have a good game or get All-Star votes, and all the comments are people connecting me to politics. Like, why can’t I just be a good basketball player? Why does it matter if I’m from Israel, or wherever in the world, or what my race is? Just respect me as a basketball player. “You don’t have to love what I stand for or how I look, but if I’m a good player, give props. All this hate … for no reason. Like, I’m deciding things in the world.” Avdija also claims that people who understand the Middle East intimately should have a voice in public discourse, but he invites those who “are not educated” to just remain quiet…

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Newport Buzz Providence Mayor Smiley Designates City Property Off-Limits for ICE Enforcement Providence Mayor Brett Smiley signed an executive order Tuesday announcing that city property — from parking lots to parks — will now be formally off-limits to federal immigration enforcement, unless agents arrive with a judge-signed warrant. The order prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from using any city-owned garage, school, park or municipal building as a staging area, processing site or operations base for civil immigration actions. Even assembling vehicles or personnel on city property is banned. City officials have […] The post Providence Mayor Smiley Designates City Property Off-Limits for ICE Enforcement appeared first on Newport Buzz.