Miki Berkovich

(1954 - )

Miki Berkovich, born as Moshe Berkovich February 17, 1954, in Kfar Sava, Israel is considered to be Israel’s best basketball player in history.

Berkovich joined Maccabi Tel-Aviv basketball club's junior team in 1965, and adult team in 1971. With Maccabi, he won 19 national championship titles and 17 national cups.

In 1974, he took young NT to the fourth place in European Championship and was the leading scorer of the tournament.

In 1975, heplayed for Nevada college, but returned to Maccabi after just one year even though he got some calls from the New Jersey Nets and the Atlanta Hawks from the NBA.

In 1977, Berkovich helped Maccabi to win its first European Championship, defeating Mobilgirgi Varese 78-77 in the final and CSKA Moscow 91-79 in the semifinal, an achievement that produced Tal Brody’s famous sentence, “We are on the map, not only in basketball.”

In 1979, Berkovich and Israeli NT finished second after the Soviet Union NT in the European Championship in Turin.

In 1981, the second European Championship for Maccabi, Berkovich scored the winning basket from Moti Aroesti's assist and Maccabi won 80-79.

Berkovich's career in Maccabi came to the end in 1988, when he and Aroesti joined Maccabi Rishon-LeZion. Later he played for Hapoel Jerusalem and Hapoel Tel-Aviv.

Miki Berkovich retired from basketball in 1995 and wrote the autobiography, “Born to Win.”

Miki was also the owner of the Ramat-Hasharonbasketball team, both of his sons played for the team (he has 2 boys and a girl) at the time. Today, Miki is the Director of basketball operations of Ironi Nahariya.

Sources: Wikipedia