8 Amazing Jewish NBA Players You Need To Know About

Is basketball the most fun sport to watch? I’d argue that it is — especially this year, if you’re a lifelong Knicks fan.

And basketball? It’s also really Jewish, at least, as far as its roots are concerned. Back in the early 20th century, the sport, which is easy to play without too much of a financial investment (all you really needed to bring with you was a ball), was extremely popular among the Jews of New York (on the Lower East Side, especially). Early college basketball was overwhelmingly Jewish, so much so that in 1935, Newsweek called the sport one “at which Jews excel.” In 1946, it was a Jewish player, Ossie Schectman, who scored the first two points for the New York Knickerbockers in the first-ever NBA game.

You can read about the amazing Jewish history of basketball in the book “When Basketball Was Jewish,” but as its title alludes, basketball isn’t quite so Jewish anymore. Still, in honor of the very exciting basketball championships this year, especially for very Jewish New Yorkers who were there when basketball was Jewish and their descendants (Ben Stiller! Timothée Chalamet! Adam Sandler!), let’s celebrate some of the most exciting Jewish players in the NBA.

Amar’e Stoudemire

The former NBA rookie of the year during his years with the Phoenix Suns, who won a bronze medal with team USA at the 2004 Olympics, converted to Judaism in 2020. Stoudemire played a total of 14 seasons in the NBA, and was a inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this year, and the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame last year. His number in the Phoenix Suns, 32, was retired back in 2024, making him one of a few Jewish players to have their numbers retired. On Instagram, he noted that number, in gematria, which attributes Hebrew letters to numbers, is equivalent to the Hebrew world lev, heart. After retiring from the NBA, Stoudemire spent a few years playing and living in Israel, and has his own successful kosher wine venture, Stoudemire Wines.

Dolph Schayes

Adolph “Dolph” Schayes remains one of the greatest NBA players of all time. The son of Jewish Romanian immigrants, he grew up in a working-class family in the Bronx, and began playing basketball professionally as a teen with NYU. He spent his professional career at the NBA playing for the Syracuse Nationals, which later became the Philadelphia 76ers, and won a 1955 NBA championship with the team. When he retired, he spent a few years coaching the 76ers, earning the title of coach of the year. The power forward was a 12-time NBA All Star who broke many a record in his career.

Dolph’s son, Danny Schayes, would go on to play 18 seasons in the NBA. The Jewish dad was apparently unhappy with how little playing time his son was getting, and well, is there anything better than an NBA legend who is also a proud Jewish father?

Deni Avdija

Deni Avdija, the player known as Turbo, may not have brought his team, the Portland Trail Blazers, to the NBA championship finals this year, but it wasn’t for lack of trying from this NBA All-Star. Avdija started his very, very promising career in Maccabi Tel Aviv, and then got drafted to the Washington Wizards only to be traded onto the Trail Blazers in 2024. Avdija comes from a basketball legacy. His father, the colorful Zufer Avdija, known fondly as “Zufi,” is a Gorani Muslim from Serbia who came to Israel to play ball and fell in love with the country — and a kibbutznik who was a basketball player. Deni is super close to his family, a big fan of his grandmother’s kubbeh, and he even has a line of protein ice cream called Turbo, currently being sold in his own country.

Danny Wolf

Wolf is one of two players drafted onto the Brooklyn Nets back in 2025, and his family’s reaction during the draft genuinely had me weeping — the kvell is strong with this one! The 7-foot player, known for his unique playing style, was bar mitzvahed at the Western Wall and has dual Israeli and American citizenship. He took on the very auspicious in Jewish tradition number 18 to play for the Nets, and watching him play truly makes us feel lucky!

Ernie Grunfeld

Ernie Grunfeld was born in Romania, the son of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to this country and settled in Queens when Grunfeld was 8 (well, technically, almost 9). He started playing basketball soon after his family moved to New York, learning English at parks, playing with other kids.

Grunfeld represented the U.S. in the Maccabiah Games back when he was in high school, helping the team win a silver medal, and started his NBA career at the Milwaukee Bucks for two years, than the Kansas City Kings for three, and then was signed to the Knicks, where he was reunited with Bernard King, with whom he played college basketball — the two were known as the “Ernie and Bernie Show” (love that so much!). He helped his country win a gold medal at the 1976 Olympics and the 1975 Pan American Games.

After retiring, he took on a role as a general manager for the Knicks, the Bucks and later, the Washington Wizards.

His son, Dan Grunfeld, wrote a book titled “By the Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy, and an Unprecedented American Dream,” about his grandmother’s survival story (she was saved twice by Raoul Wallenberg, managed to rescue the sole silver spoon from her family’s home that wasn’t looted by neighbors and brought it with her to America), about his father’s incredible career and drive, that he says is directly informed by his family’s history, and his own basketball career — Dan played ball in Germany, and called to get his grandmother’s blessing before he signed the contract.

Omri Casspi

Before there was Dani Avdija, there was Omri Casspi, the player from Holon who made history as the first Israeli to become a first draft pick in the NBA and to play an NBA game, back — but not so very way back — in 2009. Like Avdija, Casspi played for Maccabi Tel Aviv as a small forward before being drafted and joining the Sacramento Kings. He had a decade-long career in the NBA before rejoining Maccabi Tel Aviv for two more years in 2019, and then retiring from the game in 2021.

Sue Bird

The best Jewish WNBA player, and definitely one of the best Jewish basketball players of all time, Sue Bird is truly a legend. A two-decade-long career with the Seattle Storm, four WNBA championship wins, four Olympic medals… truly, do we need to say more about this incredible point guard? Bird, the daughter of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, grew up in Syosset, New York (she went to high school with Natalie Portman!) and fell in love with the game while watching the Knicks play, of course. Of her interfaith childhood, she once said, “I did Christmas stuff just as much as I did Hanukkah stuff. I didn’t go to church, I didn’t go to temple, I wasn’t baptized, I didn’t have a bat mitzvah or anything like that, but I still had doses of both religions. It was kind of cool, I got the best of both worlds.”

When she retired in 2022, Hey Alma thanked her for being “not only the best athlete, but also the best role model a Jewish girl could ask for.” So true!

Nancy Lieberman

We can’t make this list without mentioning the point guard known as Lady Magic! Nancy Lieberman was raised in a Jewish family in Queens and considers herself “100% Jewish,” despite being a born-again Christian. She went to Hebrew school, celebrated Jewish holidays, and spent tie with her observant Jewish family. Her great-grandparents were killed during the Holocaust, and her paternal grandparents had “numbers on their wrists,” she shared in a 2010 interview. She shared that growing up she knew that “playing ball wasn’t something Jewish girls did,” but the little redhead from Queens did it anyway!

She went on to win an Olympic silver medal with Team USA, two Pan American championship medals, and to play in the WNBA’s inaugural season, the oldest player to do so at 39. (She broke that record again at 50, when she played a single game with the Detroit Shocks after multiple members were suspended.) Lieberman’s son, T.J. Cline, plays professional basketball in Israel. She recently asked her followers for prayers for him when he was in bomb shelters in Tel Aviv earlier this year. “As a mother, none of the titles, awards, or accomplishments matter in moments like this. All that matters is your child’s safety,” she wrote.