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Efes left behind a glittering era to admire

Efes left behind a glittering era to admire

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7 April 20233 Lesezeit

Zoran Milosavljevic

Efes left behind a glittering era to admire

After winning back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022, Anadolu Efes Istanbul is no longer in a position to try for a historic three-peat of Turkish Airlines EuroLeague titles, but the team and its head coach, Ergin Ataman, can look back at a glorious four-year stint with plenty of pride after defying the odds to reach such giddy heights.

With one round of games left in the 2022-23 regular season, Efes is mathematically out of playoff contention after suffering a tough 103-86 loss at city rival Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul in an electrifying clash between Turkey's only two EuroLeague champion clubs ever.

The game was much closer than the final score might suggest. Efes was in it until the last five minutes, when the hosts found an extra gear and pulled away. But the visitors went down fighting, even when it was clear that they were going to fall short.

Fenerbahce's players received a well-deserved standing ovation from the home fans, while Efes was left to reflect on a nearly unprecedented string of accomplishments that ended on Thursday.

Fenerbahce laid down the gauntlet to Efes when it became the first Turkish team to win Europe's premier club competition in 2017, and Ataman's team responded with a vengeance. Having finished bottom of the then-16-team league in 2018, Efes reached the first Final Four in the club's history in 2019 and advanced to its first-ever championship game after beating none other than Fenerbahce in the semifinals, 92-73.

Efes was beaten in the final by CSKA Moscow, but its rapid rise from the EuroLeague's doldrums was a sign of things to come. In 2020, Efes dominated and had a league-best 24-4 record. It seemed set to achieve a second successive Final Four appearance before the season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. That misfortune might have derailed other rising challengers, but Efes bounced back from the disappointment in superb fashion.

Having finished third in the regular season with a 22-12 record, and after beating Real Madrid 3-2 in an epic best-of-five clash in the quarterfinals, it got sweet revenge on CSKA, 89-86, in that season's semifinal to reach its second consecutive championship game. Then, Coach Ataman's squad defeated Barcelona in the final, 86-81, to put Efes name in the history books as champions.

The prospect of repeating that feat in the 2021-22 season was daunting by historical standards. Only one team in each of the previous two decades – Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2004 and 2005, and Olympiacos Piraeus in 2012 and 2013 – had managed to defend the trophy, and both used miraculous, last-second shots in one of their title seasons to do so. However, despite being a first-time champion, Efes soon proved it belonged in the conversation of the century's greatest teams.

Having shown its potential to beat the best teams with its offense, emphasizing free-flowing basketball that featured a plethora of assists and three-point marksmanship, Efes in last season's Final Four showcased an ability to grind the opposition down in a different fashion. Its own miracle shot, a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Vasilije Micic, beat Olympiacos Piraeus 74-77 in the semifinal. And then a rugged and physical contest in the championship game against Real produced a 58-57 win for Efes to lift its second straight trophy.

Considering it had been the runner-up in 2019 and then the runaway favorite in the truncated pandemic season, this was arguably the longest stretch of brilliance by any team since Jugoplastika Split of Croatia won three titles in a row between 1989 and 1991.

Hopes of emulating the success of Split, the undisputed kings of the 1988-1991 period, were threatened this season as Efes struggled to reproduce the same form that had seen the club take Europe by storm. Injuries to key players resulted in inconsistent performances, and Ataman acknowledged that defeats against unfancied opposition earlier in the campaign left Efes with too much to do in the latter stages of the regular season.

"We basically lost our chance to make the postseason, not tonight, but [rather] in previous games, and especially in those which we lost at home against teams that will now also be out of the playoffs," Ataman said after going down at Fenerbahce. "We had a lot of problems during the season, but this is sport and this is basketball.

"For four years we made history in the EuroLeague, and even if we had won tonight we'd still have had only a slim chance of making the playoffs."

Not quite a dynasty – but not far from one, either – Efes made its mark during a trophy-laden period that will no doubt galvanize the club's future sides to follow in the footsteps of a truly outstanding generation.