Following a summer in which head coach Ergin Ataman and star guard Vasilije Micic left the club, a new-look Anadolu Efes Istanbul side got its preseason training camp underway on Thursday evening. Efes is now turning the page in the hope of creating a new dynasty, led by new head coach Erdem Can and 2022-23 All-EuroLeague Second Team guard Darius Thompson, who has joined from Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz. Both Coach Can and Thompson were two of the prominent figures from Day One of Efes's training camp.
Efes's journey back to the top starts now
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They were not the only new faces in training camp, though, as Tyrique Jones and Erkan Yilmaz, who followed Coach Can from Turk Telekom Ankara to Efes, also had plenty of prominence in the photos posted by the club's social media team. This summer, Efes has also signed Derek Willis, Ercan Osmani, Burak Can Yildizli, Justus Hollatz and Dogus Ozdemiroglu, who is out with a long-term injury after tearing his ACL in early August.
Efes may have said goodbye to Micic this summer, but plenty of the squad's best players are returning, including forward Will Clyburn and guard Shane Larkin. Following a season in which Efes's three-peat effort saw the team finish with a 17-17 record and fail to make the playoffs, hopes are high for what the new Big Three of Thompson, Larkin and Clyburn could look like in the upcoming campaign.
Elsewhere, the likes of Elijah Bryant, Rodrigue Beaubois and Tibor Pleiss, all members of the back-to-back champion side with Larkin, bring a level of experience and know-how to the locker room, which will be key as Coach Can enters his first season as a Turkish Airlines EuroLeague head coach.
Efes's preseason schedule
Efes's first game of preseason gets underway on next Friday, September 1, as it faces Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana in the Slovenian town of Kranjska Gora. After, it goes on to play against Lokomotiv Kuban (September 7), Zenit St. Petersburg (September 8), AS Monaco (September 10), Tofas (September 12), Pinar Karsıyaka (September 14), CSKA Moscow (September 15) and Besiktas (September 17). Efes starts its EuroLeague campaign on the road at FC Barcelona on October 5.