101 Greats of European Basketball

usual double-double again, 16 points and 14 rebounds,
but it was already too late. The title game would feature
Benetton and FC Barcelona.
In the 2003-04 season Turkcan was back to CS-
KA and he was again in the Final Four, this time in Tel
Aviv, but again, he missed out on the title game. In the
semis, Maccabi got the best of CSKA with a 93-85 win
as Anthony Parker (27 points) and Sarunas Jasikevicius
(18) led the way to victory. On the other side, Marcus
Brown scored 23, J.R. Holden contributed 16 points
and Turkcan picked up 10 points plus 10 boards. After
the season, he stayed in Moscow but switched teams
to Dynamo for one year before returning to Istanbul,
first to Ulker and later to Fenerbahce in 2006-07 until,
finally, both clubs merged into what today we know as
Fenerbahce Dogus Istanbul.
Euroleague Basketball Legend
Lacking collective titles with his teams, Turkcan
received many individual accolades. He was MVP of
the 2002 regular season in the EuroLeague. He was
also MVP of the round six times in 2002-03, the Top
16 MVP in 2003 and a member of the All-EuroLeague
teams in 2002, 2003 and 2004. His career highs in the
EuroLeague are a performance index rating of 43, with
Montepaschi against Panathinaikos, and 27 points and
23 rebounds with CSKA against Buducnost. He had
49 double-doubles in the EuroLeague – still a record –
but that 27+23 performance has a special place in the
history of the competition. In 129 EuroLeague games,
he grabbed 1,287 rebounds, which still ranks fourth
all-time, behind only players with at least double his
amount of games in the competition. Still, Turkcan’s
9.95 rebounds per game is the second-highest career
average and the highest for anyone with more than 65
EuroLeague games played.
In February 2011, Turkcan suffered a severe ACL
injury and in 2012 he announced his retirement. On
September 16 of that year, Fenerbahce and CSKA Moscow
played a friendly game on the day of his official
goodbye. That day there was only one winner, Mirsad
Turkcan. Five years later, 2017 brought more recognition
for Turkcan as he was named an official Euroleague
Basketball Legend during the semifinals at the Final
Four in Istanbul. Two nights later, he was among the
many who celebrated when Fenerbahce became the
first Turkish club ever to with continental title, completing
a path that Mirsad Turkcan, the king of rebounds,
helped to build.
101 greats of european basketball
Mirsad Turkcan
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