By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Following Turkey’s BSL Regular Season Round 8 game for Anadolu Efes, the play-caller of the Istanbul giant, Ergin Ataman opened up about an investigation of ELPA, the EuroLeague Players’ Association.
“There is no distinction between domestic and foreign players in our team, only out-of-form players need to train extra. This is the rule of professional sports, the player cannot keep form without training,” he shared his view on developing players and keeping them fresh through demanding stretches of the season, “That’s why we kept the players we didn’t use in the EuroLeague this week in Istanbul and made them have an intense training program.”
“Although there are those who are disturbed by this, especially the EuroLeague Players Association is very disturbed by this situation,” he extended into the reaction of ELPA, “For this reason, an investigation was opened against us. We are still looking at the result, we are a big club. No one can interfere in our internal affairs. No one can interfere with who we recruit or who we train.”
The reigning back-to-back Turkish Airlines EuroLeague champions reverting to domestic action earned a comfortable win, 95-74, against Manisa Sunday. Seldom used in EuroLeague, Bugrahan Tuncer set his season-best at 23 points. Most connected to restrictions stemming from the regulations on foreigners implemented in the Turkish league, Rodrigue Beaubois, Dogus Balbay, Isaiah Taylor, Tibor Pleiss, Amath M’Baye, and Achille Polonara all sat out alongside injured Shane Larkin.
“As a matter of fact, the result is obvious, the players came out and played very well. We came from a very busy week, we were able to return from Italy yesterday (Saturday) evening. Today we rested our main players, we did not give our foreign players much time,” explained Ataman referring to the double-game week of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, “The players who stayed in Istanbul this week and worked with an intense training tempo contributed. After all, such matches are very dangerous, Manisa team has very high-quality foreigners. They’re also concentrating on the game they’re going to play against you all week. The atmosphere was also very nice, but we managed to get a clear win.”
“Congratulations to my players, today my assistant Yakup Sekizkok directed the match. Today, I had the chance to rest a bit like the main players. The analysis of the match was completely done by coach Yakup,” concluded the Efes boss, “We played a very good game and we will continue like this. I repeat, no one can interfere in our internal affairs.”
Refocusing on the top-tier club continental competition of Europe, the team guided by Ataman will play host to Olympiacos in Regular Season Round 11 action Thursday.
After beating both EA7 Emporio Armani Milan and Virtus Segafredo Bologna on the road this week, Efes improved to a 5-5 W-L tally in EuroLeague. And today went up to 6-1 at the domestic level.