Hello everybody,

Just as it is for all real basketball fans, the arrival of the Top 16 is good news for Fenerbahce Ulker fans. You know, we are challenging on two fronts this season: on the court and off the court. I'm sure you know what I mean: on the court, with our opponents; and off the court, with injuries. We are trying to defend our title in Turkish League, to win the Turkish Cup and of course, the main target, to reach the Final Four in Berlin. So far, we have done well despite the difficulty of successive injuries. Back in the early fall, playing for the Turkish national team in the group qualifying stages for EuroBasket 2009, three of us - Semih Erden, Omer Asik and I - suffered serious injuries. Semih and I started to play again in the middle of the Euroleague regular season. But Omer Asik is still waiting for his turn to come back, hopefully within a month. That's not to forget the long-term injury suffered by our new signing at the beginning of the season, Gordan Giricek, whom we hope will be ready for the Top 16.

Besides the return of Giricek, the main good news is that we showed during the regular season that we were capable of doing something special despite all those very important absences. I think we were able to qualify because of the young talents and newcomers making such a good connection with the experienced players on the team. Emir Preldzic, Gasper Vidmar and Oguz Savas made huge... more

Hi everybody!

First of all, I would like to wish all the best to all the competitors in Euroleague. It's a little bitter for me that I'll be out for a little while more due to my knee injury. I'm luckier than my teammate Omer Asik, who was also injured during national-team duty and will be out until the spring. Fortunately, Semih Erden and I are both expected to join our team in a few weeks.

We are on the edge of a new beginning with the players who left and the ones joined us. But if you ask me the difference between the last season and this season, I can only say that the difference is serious injuries, nothing else. We lost Willie Solomon and Tarence Kinsey to the NBA, but we are lucky that their replacements are as quality as they were. I wish Willie and Tarence all the best in their NBA journey.

Marques Green is a kind of perfect team player who is always trying to find the best timing and position for a pass to his teammates to score. This is a good thing for a team which is based on the team play. We have Devin Smith, who is also a great player eligible to play the role for the team effort. He is also very kind and a perfect example of a strong character, which helps the other teammates in any situation. Theres nothing I can say about Gordan Giricek that others have not: he is a kind of elite star, which all teams need. I'm sure he will help us a lot. So generally, if I compare the last season's team... more