“I always had a feeling that I would go to the NBA. You don’t get an offer from the NBA anyway, there is no such offer. When I was in Beşiktaş, there was no one to play in front of me, I I was going to play, I paid a lot of attention to what I ate and my training, but I wasn’t a little overweight, but I lost a lot of weight. “I had a great season.”
“European coaches are like ‘crazy’. There is no such thing in the NBA. A coach cannot shout at LeBron or Curry, they will immediately say ‘Who are you?’ “The players are stronger in the NBA. For example, you can’t take Obradovic to the NBA, the players won’t accommodate him there.”
“I don’t want to go back to Turkey. God willing, I want to finish my basketball career in the NBA. Injuries can happen, that’s a different thing. Frankly, I don’t want to go back to Turkey anyway, I ‘m only here in the summer. I don’t want to be here during the season. I got used to the culture there very quickly.”
“In the middle of the season, talks about the NBA started at Beşiktaş. I said, ‘I’ll go no matter what’ and I went. Then I got an offer from Fenerbahçe. In Turkey, a club asks a player, ‘ ‘Do you want to go?’ If I don’t want to, I’m not going Fenerbahçe made me a very crazy offer. We were playing for 30 thousand TL a month at that time, that money was nothing for Istanbul, I had brought my family here too. “
“Fenerbahçe wanted me in the middle of the season but I said ‘I don’t want it, I won’t go’. If I had gone to Fenerbahçe, they would have given me a big amount of money but when I was at Beşiktaş and the NBA offered me a free transfer, I had the right to go, Fenerbahçe wouldn’t have blocked my way but they would have asked for a big amount of money for the NBA, for example, if Fenerbahçe wanted 3 million dollars, The NBA would pay 800 thousand of that and you would pay the rest. If I had gone, it would have been the mistake of my life.”
“I didn’t want to go to Fenerbahçe and play for 15 minutes while playing for 30 minutes in Beşiktaş. Towards the end of the season, NBA scout teams were coming to watch all my training. I trained very well everywhere, but I trained very badly in Orlando, where I wanted to go the most, because I thought I would be selected from the top 10 because I had a very good season in my past either 13-14. to be announced and my name still wasn’t called.”
“When I was little, I watched a lot of games but I didn’t have an idol. I really liked Semih Erden, he dominated everywhere. I can say that he was my idol at that time, his dunks and such were very impressive .”
“Of course there is excitement outside the court against the players I play with, but I don’t feel it on the court. When I play against LeBron, I don’t realize it’s LeBron, I’m like, ‘I’m going to eat him.’ Once during the game, when I passed and saw LeBron in front of me, I just had the feeling of ‘Wow Alperen, you’re here.'”
