Derrick Sharp
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Derrick Sharp (born October 5, 1971 in Orlando, Florida, USA) is a professional basketball player. Currently plays for Maccabi Tel-Aviv basketball club. As of 2006, he is the team's most senior member with 11 seasons with the club.
Height: 183 cm. Position: Shooting guard/Point guard.
Sharp went to Israel in 1993 after playing for the University of South Florida and joined Maccabi Hadera from Leumit Bet League. From 1994 to 1996 he played for Hapoel Migdal-HaEmek, also Leumit Bet and then made the big jump to the best team in Israel - Maccabi Tel-Aviv.
With Maccabi, Sharp won 10 national championships, 9 national cups and 3 European titles (2001 Suproleague, 2004 and 2005 Euroleague). He quickly became crowd favorite for his tough defence, three-point shooting and clutch plays. The most memorable example of the latter came at April 7, 2004 against Zalgiris Kaunas. With 2 second remaining and Maccabi trailing by 3 in a critical game, Sharp caught a long pass from Gur Shelef, turned to the basket and fired game-tying three-pointer, forcing overtime. Maccabi won that game, advanced to the Final Four (held in its home town Tel-Aviv) and became Euroleague Champion. On the other side, Sharp lacks playmaking skills and often makes unnecessary fouls trying to steal a ball.
Derrick has been married to an Israeli citizen. It allowed him to obtain Israeli citizenship and to play for Israeli national team (2000-2003), including appearances in Eurobasket 2001 and 2003.
