Fenerbahce Ulker - 2013/14

[Cemalex]

Yeah, he's actually funny, but you gotta give credit to him, as he won the title... so he backs up his funny words somehow... We have yet to see if Fener can do anything with all those names... (as much fun as it is, history is not backing you up, guys!)

Fener has F4 contender roster only second time , last year disaster will teach a lot in this year . If we talked domestic league fener won four times in last seven and it is much better than winning one in last 23 . Ataman could easly remember how fener destroyed his team at the year he did not have the players with cathine. ( 32-11 first 63-32 third period score at the title game)

- Copied and moved from EL signings thread - Levenspiel

[Levenspiel]

That's alright, I'm not a GS fan (neither BJK), and I have no intention of trolling...

The only time Fener squad was truly exciting was one year in late 90s (forgot exactly which), with Abdulrauf, Milic, McRae, Kutluay etc...(also Erdal kosan, if I'm not mistaken )... The current roster is not that impressive, imho, but you now have a legend as coach... We'll see how that will turn out, but I'm afraid Fener fans have got overexcited again too early.. Cheers!

[Saybia]

That's alright, I'm not a GS fan (neither BJK), and I have no intention of trolling...

The only time Fener squad was truly exciting was one year in late 90s (forgot exactly which), with Abdulrauf, Milic, McRae, Kutluay etc...(also Erdal kosan, if I'm not mistaken )... The current roster is not that impressive, imho, but you now have a legend as coach... We'll see how that will turn out, but I'm afraid Fener fans have got overexcited again too early.. Cheers!

By exciting i assume you consider Banvits current roster is exciting right? or Karşıyaka has always had exciting rosters,

Cause this kind of roster below is the best and most balanced roster FB ever had, of course we re not directly qualifiying to F4 all we can say is we re a serious contender, and there are more than 4 teams to be considered as the same

Bo,Barış(Calathes,Teo?)
Ömer,Melih
Bojan,Emir
Kleiza,Bjelica,İlkan(İzzet?)
Zoric,Oğuz,Kaya(Vidmar?)

the only position seems weak on the paper is shooting guard, but we all know Obra will play with 2 pg at the same time. By the way there are rumours of a possible exchange of Teo and Bo, i personaly may choose Teo and Saras instead of Bo and Calathes

[Levenspiel]

By exciting i assume you consider Banvits current roster is exciting right? or Karşıyaka has always had exciting rosters,

Cause this kind of roster below is the best and most balanced roster FB ever had, of course we re not directly qualifiying to F4 all we can say is we re a serious contender, and there are more than 4 teams to be considered as the same

Bo,Barış(Calathes,Teo?)
Ömer,Melih
Bojan,Emir
Kleiza,Bjelica,İlkan(İzzet?)
Zoric,Oğuz,Kaya(Vidmar?)

the only position seems weak on the paper is shooting guard, but we all know Obra will play with 2 pg at the same time. By the way there are rumours of a possible exchange of Teo and Bo, i personaly may choose Teo and Saras instead of Bo and Calathes

haha, funny. You know the usual 5 EL teams that have always been impressive on paper and on court(!) over the last couple of years; I really envy your optimism with so long history of failure and no damn f.cking success so far... serious contender... I'll keep that in mind!

[Deschain]

haha, funny. You know the usual 5 EL teams that have always been impressive on paper and on court(!) over the last couple of years; I really envy your optimism with so long history of failure and no damn f.cking success so far... serious contender... I'll keep that in mind!

Fener roster is quite exciting this year. Don't compare it to the '99 lockout roster please. you're being nostalgic.
By the way, they are a contender. There's no criteria for being a contender.
They are ambitious and have been making their moves according to their ambition. correct or not.
They have the enough potential to go f4. They also had it last year.
Their fate is dependant on how much potential they'll be able to unleash this year.
Come on, Zeljko is now at the helm. You must be excited too.

[Saybia]

related like this: yes, Ataman "sounds" funny, but he may have a point... His team won the last title, and it's natural to assume he knows what is working best (or not working) for his team... I didn't know this, but if they tried to get Kleiza, he might have decided that his being too expensive could disrupt team chemistry...

We both know how he acts when there is something related about FB. If it is the money and the team why did they reach for Spanoulis? and afterwards when they failed, again Murat Özyer stated there werent a problem about the money. There is no team chemistry when it comes to Spanoulis?
While one of your major rival make a transfer if you make a statement right away, something like "they were offered to us but we didnt want them because of chemistry etc." this is irrespectful and this smells jealousy, it is like if they would offer the same money Kleiza was already lying front of their door waiting to sign the papers.

Even if it is the reality, and their team chemistry is something to risk for Spanoulis rather than Kleiza, then you could wait a couple of days to make a statement in a gentle way.

[Saybia]

haha, funny. You know the usual 5 EL teams that have always been impressive on paper and on court(!) over the last couple of years; I really envy your optimism with so long history of failure and no damn f.cking success so far... serious contender... I'll keep that in mind!

History failure? You mean the team you mentioned when Abdul Rauf abondoned the team 3rd month and replaced by Gilmore, while Tabak had no back up which caused Tanoka Beard collecting every boards, while even İbrahim scored 34 we lost to qualify through quarter final, just because we didnt have a second center to back up Tabak. You mean this team was better than this current roster?

Or are we having some communication problem? Fener if achieves to have top class pg will have the best roster ever had. Which would be one of the best roster of Europe on the paper. That means nothing. That doesnt make you win anything, it couldnt be last year but we can easily get beaten by any teams if we fail to achieve some crucial things like being a team etc., that is an another story, and im not denying that..

[baldur]

History failure? You mean the team you mentioned when Abdul Rauf abondoned the team 3rd month and replaced by Gilmore, while Tabak had no back up which caused Tanoka Beard collecting every boards, while even İbrahim scored 34 we lost to qualify through quarter final, just because we didnt have a second center to back up Tabak. You mean this team was better than this current roster?

Or are we having some communication problem? Fener if achieves to have top class pg will have the best roster ever had. Which would be one of the best roster of Europe on the paper. That means nothing. That doesnt make you win anything, it couldnt be last year but we can easily get beaten by any teams if we fail to achieve some crucial things like being a team etc., that is an another story, and im not denying that..

yeah, failure of course. what else can it be called? when will it be understood that big names, famous squads dont mean anything until season starts and we see what is what? why dont we show some persistance? let's just wait and see things.

[Cemalex]

haha, funny. You know the usual 5 EL teams that have always been impressive on paper and on court(!) over the last couple of years; I really envy your optimism with so long history of failure and no damn f.cking success so far... serious contender... I'll keep that in mind!

Fener never have the team to be F4 contender , only 2012 -2013 and 1999 sesason we have been considered a F4 candidates. We have only one season to consider as a disaster season ( last year ) . The other years we never be a F4 level team . Sometimes we could make top 8 instead of top 16 but they are not so bad . This year fener will have most compelete team in their history. In 1999 good players terrible coach , 2012 good but past their primes players plus talented but homesick coach . This year different with the best coach and good roster. We are F4 candidates , still behind of madrid barca cska oly on the paper but could be a threat for one of them get their places.

You said you will keep it your mind but i doubt you have the ability to do that for long time.

[Cemalex]

why does everyone think fenerbahce needs an extra pg beside of bo mccalebb? bo is not the player who plays just 10-15 minutes per match.

Because he is not obradovic type pg , but obra doesn't want to give up from him . So he wants to add legit pass first pg . If that player have enough size , we can use them in the court at the same time.

[UMUT_FB_LAL]

OMG such smart comments about "history" and "failures"

[baldur]

OMG such smart comments about "history" and "failures"

you can make your own and original comments instead of mocking us, if you are able to, of course. let me tell, perhaps, you must be thinking fenerbahce is a contender this year, mustnt you

[Saybia]

yeah, failure of course. what else can it be called? when will it be understood that big names, famous squads dont mean anything until season starts and we see what is what? why dont we show some persistance? let's just wait and see things.

So then we re on the same line? The roster is the best we ever had so far, and on the paper if you compare with others should be considered as a contender, the rest is what we have to wait and see, if we cant achieve some basic merits of basketball, FB can easily be eliminated within top 16, are we good?

[Cuneyt]

Come on guys...
I am a die hard fan of Fenerbahce, but being a fan does not mean having a blind eye.

The last few years, whenever Fenerbahce had a good transfer, lots of FB fans came here and "bragged" about how good the team was.
We know the result!

A little humility goes a long way in basketball.

The team "may" be great. The coach is a legend.
There "may" be a good season ahead of us.
Just be patient, and wait for the players to evolve to a team...
And dont talk prematurely about F4 just yet.

[UMUT_FB_LAL]

I think that budgets in the past are being overestimated waaay too hard, just because of last year, where only Fener really had an expensive team, and I think even that is overrated
I think that the good performances from Turkish teams in the past are way underrated, when they had mediocre budgets

The underlying structure of Turkish club basketball (and youth talents) is getting stronger and stronger, and people in here say stuff like 'history and failures', when in reality those 'failures' have been falling just one step short a record number of times. Fener had the worst chain of events happening to them last year, Besiktas was rocking on a heavily reduced budget, still beating teams like Rytas and Partizan, Efes was in the F4 with a foot and a half with mostly players remaining from earlier times, GS had bad luck with injuries and Hawkins at the most important time and Banvit was just one game from the quarter-finals, again.. Karsiyaka reached the Eurochallenge final.

We have got three and potentially four strong teams in the Euroleague, while Karsiyaka and Turk Telekom are on the rise and Besiktas is an outsider. We've had three different champions in three years and five different finalists of the possible six in that span. We have a very exciting group of players playing in Turkey, perhaps the most exciting group in all of Europe. The only thing that is still missing is fighting spirit and better yet basketball adulthood, and now we have coaches like Obradovic, Ataman, Mahmuti and probably Itoudis who can add that to the mix.

In my opinion we are just on the right track to become the basketball heaven of Europe. This process is still very new. Just because a year (Fenerbahçe mostly) didn't work out, it doesn't mean that it's not good. You can do things perfectly and it still might not work sometimes. But these efforts lately are making the chances of 'failures' smaller and smaller. Historical failure talk is pussy and a wrong way of thinking. We should learn of history and learn from it, and we are. But what we should mainly do is look at the future again, and again. Until we burst that invisible barricade to the top and the successes will start flowing in.

So stop with the pussy history mentality and have the balls to grasp the future. History will get you nothing, the future has the ability to give you things.