May 19

May 19 Mahmoud Abdelfattah: First Palestinian head coach in G League history

sports, Sports Edition, You Should Know, Print Issue, Palestine in America

“ALHAMDULILLAH.”

Mahmoud Abdelfattah was extremely thankful following the three-hour dinner with Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey and a few members of the front office, where he was informed he would become the first Palestinian head coach in NBA G League history.

Abdelfattah was promoted last September by the Rio Grande Valley Vipers (11-23), an affiliate of the Rockets. The former Vipers assistant found out shortly after returning from Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca required at least once of every Muslim who can afford it and has good health.

Abdelfattah’s original dream of playing basketball professionally slowly shifted during his rides to school with his late mother. During his high school playing days, he would read the sports section of the Chicago Sun-Times to see how his contemporaries in the state were doing. His high school playing days overlapped with players like Derrick Rose, Patrick Beverley, and Bobby Frasor.

“I knew I was good, but I knew how talented these guys were, man — like Derrick Rose. So ... I was a realist,” Abdelfattah told Palestine in America.

Despite not receiving any scholarship offers and realizing there was a limit to his playing days, he continued to indulge himself with the sport he loved. He was a walk-on at Wilbur Wright College in Chicago in 2006 and earned a scholarship later that year. The following season he was named region MVP, first team All-Region, second team All-American, All-Star game nominee and All-Conference first team.

Abdelfattah would move on to play for the St. Cloud State University Huskies, helping the team advance to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight in the 2009-10 season. During the 2010-11 season he served as a student-assistant coach, an experience that launched his coaching career.

His first stint was with Team Next Level Performance, an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team. In 2011, he took a position as varsity assistant coach and sophomore head coach at Perspectives Charter High School in Chicago before returning to the Huskies as an assistant coach in 2013. Abdelfattah would then join the Vipers in 2017 as a basketball operations assistant. He replaced Joseph Blair as Vipers head coach in 2019. Blair, who is now a member of the Philadelphia 76ers coaching staff, became the fourth of the last five Vipers head coaches to move on to coach in the NBA; that group includes NBA champion and Toronto Raptors Head Coach Nick Nurse.

According to Abdelfattah, he was one of approximately 25 candidates the Rockets were considering for the Vipers’ job. The new season was approaching and he was unsure if he’d get the job or if he’d return to the team as an assistant. A few months before he found out his fate, he decided to make Hajj.

“You can tell, win [or] lose, I'm never too high, never too low. I've missed out on job opportunities, or I should say I've just never gotten a job opportunity before. I've never been the one like, ‘Damn, why can't I get that job? Why didn't they pick me?’” Abdelfattah explained. “It was always like Alhamdulillah — things happen for a reason. And you know, Alhamdulillah, I made Hajj this past summer ... and made duaa (prayer) on it. Everything just clicked.”

If you only pay attention to the win and loss columns, Abdelfattah’s first season as head coach of the Vipers has been rough. But when Palestine in America caught up with him following a loss to the Wisconsin Herd earlier this season, his even-keel demeanor was front and center.

“If the guys are progressing and improving their skill set, that's what it's about,” Abdelfattah reassured. “It's about helping them get to the next level. So as long as you’re developing the

younger guys, the guys on NBA contracts, the two-way guys, and G-League guys, that’s more important than winning games.”

According to Abdelfattah, Morey checks in on him once or twice a week “to chop it up and make sure things are going alright.”

Despite being at the height of his career with so much potential, he looks back at 2018 and his single season as the assistant coach of the Jordanian national team as one of his best experiences.

“The Herd versus the Vipers, it's city versus city, [but there] you're playing country versus country. And when you go to another country, the whole country is against you,” Abdelfattah reminisced. ““When we played in Lebanon, when India and Korea came to Jordan, and when we went to China and the arena was sold out —like 12,000 people. It was a unbelievable coaching experience.”

The Jordanian national team asked Abdelfattah to return, but he declined. The head coach that hired him — Osama Mohd Fathi Daghles — is no longer a member of the team, and “blood is thicker than water,” Abdelfattah explained. Daghles is currently an assistant on Abdelfattah’s Vipers staff. The two met in early 2018 and clicked because of their religious and cultural background. They are both Muslim and of Palestinian origin.

Abdelfattah is a self-proclaimed realist, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t dreaming big. The Palestinian American, born and raised in Chicago, dreams of one day coaching the Chicago Bulls or even the Houston Rockets. If the opportunity ever presented itself, he would “love” to be an ambassador of the game.

“If there’s an opportunity for me to coach the Palestinian national team down the road, and bring exposure to that side of the world, it would be a great experience.” Abdelfattah said. “I mean, basketball has no face; it’s a global game.”