BY PATRICK BREEN
SPECIAL TO PASCACK PRESS
WOODCLIFF LAKE—From junior varsity role player to rising Euroleague star, Woodcliff Lake resident Alex Brodsky has devoted his life to basketball, and it’s finally paying off. Averaging over 25 points and 9 rebounds per game, the 2017 graduate of Dwight-Englewood High School is playing professionally in Luxembourg as a part of the BBC Les Sangliers Wooltz professional team.
With those statistics, Brodsky finished in the top 10 of average scoring for all Division-1 and Division-2 teams in Luxembourg last season. This success has opened things up for Brodsky, who has now received heavy interest from professional basketball recruiters in Spain, Finland, Israel, Albania, and beyond.
This has been a long and difficult road for Brodsky, who says he has devoted himself to basketball the last several years in an effort to play professionally. If it weren’t for hundreds of cold calls and emails, he says he would have never gotten this opportunity to play in Luxembourg.
“We spoke on a Thursday and I flew out the next day,” Brodsky told Pascack Press in late July. “I was the only guy who was a walk-on. Everyone else there had played high level college Division-1, there were guys from Clemson and Iowa State there, big-time basketball schools.”
In high school, Brodsky helped Dwight Englewood to a 23-5 overall record his senior year, but only averaged about 7 points per game. At 6-foot-4-inches Brodsky showed real promise, scoring a game winner at the Bergen Holiday Festival championship game and averaging seven rebounds, but Brodsky says he hadn’t quite grown into his body yet, weighing approximately 160 pounds.
After high school he began playing basketball for Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, and then transferred to Binghamton University, a Division-1 school in upstate New York.
“Over Covid is where I really had that improvement,” Brodsky told us. “I came back much stronger and started to hit various strides that year, thinking I could finally play at that high level as a walk-on.”
Christian Hinckson, who played alongside Brodsky as a member of the Binghamton Bearcats basketball team for two seasons, said, “He is one of the hardest workers I know. Alex was constantly in the gym before and after practices.”
He added, “One practice Alex and I were doing a shooting drill. It took him such a long time to complete it but the way he fought through and persisted that he wouldn’t leave until he completed the drill, it’s telling of his character and work ethic”
Brodsky, 24, grew another inch throughout college and says he got serious about hitting the weight room every day, now weighing about 205 pounds.
“If I eat three times a day, I work out three times a day, but it obviously takes a toll on you mentally. When you go overseas there is a stress level involved because you can get cut week to week. Everything you own can be gone, your car, your apartment,” he said.
At Binghamton he earned an MBA and undergrad degree in business administration and management, graduating cum laude.
At this point, the biggest question is where he goes from here. His stat lines in Luxembourg are impressive, averaging more in his rookie season than NBA veteran Alfonzo McKinnie averaged when he played in the same division, but he is still a long way away from locking down a career in professional basketball.
“The pay is really not very good when you’re starting out, so I have to evaluate how long I want to do this for,” Brodsky said. “I haven’t signed anything yet, but hopefully in the next few weeks I will figure out where to play moving forward.”
Brodsky says he has effectively put his life on hold to devote himself to basketball, missing family vacations, social gatherings, and major life events. With this in mind, we had to ask: Are you addicted to basketball?
“Yes, 100%,” he said, “After so much time and so much effort, I wish it wasn’t this way, but if you do everything you can for something it requires so much sacrifice. It isn’t even a question of if I want to play or don’t want to play basketball, it’s like drinking water. Even if I go down to the Jersey shore on vacation, I have to find a basketball court and bring my weights.”
Brodsky said he has three basketball courts in mind every time he goes down the shore, and also knows virtually every court in North Jersey. He can be found most days at Lifetime Fitness shooting baskets, running drills, and working on his game.
When the weather turns nicer he shifts his workouts to an outdoor court in Montvale, or to the shooting guns in Ho-Ho-Kus and Tenafly, where he can practice rebounds and passes with velocity.
“The flip side to basketball is it’s eventually going to break your heart,” Brodsky said, “At some point the road ends, so how are you going to contribute to society as a regular person once this ends?”
He summarizes his own “pretty crazy” story this way: “I went from being a JV player, to being cut from a Division III team, to playing intramural basketball, to playing Division I and ultimately professionally. I am hoping to inspire people in this area.”
While he does need to start thinking about life after basketball, Brodsky says that time isn’t quite up for his career. He is committed to playing next season and hopes to continue improving day in and day out, whether as a pro or just shooting hoops here at home.