By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Fenerbahce forward/center Jan Vesely revealed that his stint in the NBA with the Washington Wizards and the Denver Nuggets was far from a pleasant experience for him.
“NBA was not a very happy part of my life,” Vesely said in an interview with Fenerbahce TV when asked about his shooting range over the years. “It’s not only about shooting, I was shooting 20 percent from free throws in one season but it wasn’t about techniques, but about mental stuff. Then I came to Fenerbahce and Zeljko (Obradovic) gave me a chance to play and renew my career and to love basketball again. To be honest, in three years in the NBA I didn’t love basketball.”
Vesely signed with the Washington Wizards after the team selected him with the sixth overall pick in the 2011 Draft. He averaged 4.7 points and 4.4 rebounds over 18.9 minutes in his rookie season and then saw his playing getting decreased to 11.8 minutes in 2012-2013. He was traded to the Nuggets in February 2014, few months before returning to EuroLeague to join Fenerbahce.
Since he came back in Europe, Vesely has been named in the All-EuroLeague First team in 2016 and 2018 and helped Fenerbahce to win the 2017 EuroLeague title, a first-time achievement for the club and Turkish basketball in general.