The newcomer Fethiye Belediye strengthened their roster every week
For the 2020-2021 season, TBL has two new teams in Petkim Spor and Fethiye Belediye Spor. Many times, those team newly promoted had a lot of problems in their first season in the first league, but what are the chances for this two teams to overcome the predictions and remain in the first league after this season? The newcomer Fethiye Beledye strengthen their roster
For now, I will stop on Fethiye Belediye. Who are they? They are founded in 2000 and thanks to Teksut Bandirma withdrawal from TBL, they were announced as the 16th team of the league. It’s the first season for them in the top-tier of Turkish Basketball and that’s pretty huge for the city of Fethiye, which has a population of 162.000 people.
In the first 3 games, they recorded only defeats against Pinar (92-55), Bursaspor (75-89) and Fenerbahce (113-74). While in the first game, they had only one foreigner, in the last two there were added 3 three more American players, that made a good impact for the team. Their foreigners are Branden Frazier (added from Bonn), Abdul-Malik Abu (Sporting), Elgin Cook who played before for Ludwigsburg, Avtodor Saratov ( 15 points and 5 rebounds per game) and Unics Kazan, and Erick Neal.
Their last addition is Darion Atkins, an American power forward/centre that played for many teams in Basketball Champions League. Since 2017, he played for Strasbourg, Hapoel Holon, Brose Bamberg and Iberostar Tenerife. Four weeks ago he signed with AEK Athens for the final stage of BCL but was released by the Greek team after failing to win the trophy.
Alongside these players, Fethiye has some decent Turkish players and I don’t see why they can’t be a nice surprise for the league this season. Yes, they started with 3 defeats, but two of them came against two of the main favourites, alongside Anadolu Efes, to win this year’s championship. They can make some noise here and I think they will.
Image: Fethiye Beledye
Bogdan Vasile Tirc
