By Can Pelister

 

Happy new year, everyone! Here we are back with two Top Prospects of Turkey and Europe born in 1996: Berk Ugurlu and Okben Ulubay. Both are going to be key players of Turkey U-18 team this year in U18 European Championship, which will take part in Konya, Turkey.

Berk Ibrahim Ugurlu (’96 Fenerbahce Ulker Guard 1.92)

Ugurlu is one of the best potential point guard’s in Turkey, alongside with Kenan Sipahi. He’s practicing with Fenerbahce Ulker senior team and we can see some developments on Berk. Shooting the ball was always weaknesses of Berk, he has soft hands but his mechanic was not right. And most important thing, he was not shooting the ball with confidence. Ugurlu is very good ball handler and very good defender both on the ball and away from the ball. Has very quick first step and Ugurlu is very active on transition offense. He has very good passing skills and great courtvision. From physical standpoint, he’s now more strong than the past.

But after his experience with Zeljko Obradovic, we’ve seen him shooting the ball and playing with more confidence before the past and his shooting percentage improved. He’s averaging 14.3 points and 10.1 assists per game in U18 Istanbul League. Probably he’s going to be one of the best players and leader of Fenerbahce Ulker in L’Hospitalet between 3-5 January.

Okben Ulubay (’96 Anadolu Efes/Pertevniyal Guard & Forward 2.01)

MVP of U-16 European champion, Okben Ulubay, getting some chances with senior team of Anadolu Efes during this season. He’s mainly playing with Pertevniyal Genclik in second division. So far, his biggest problem seems are turnovers. Recently he had 8 turnovers in 21 minutes vs. Yesilgiresun, and he’s leading the second division in turnovers with 4,4 turnovers per game. Without no doubt, Ulubay is the best backcourt player as talent wise in generation of 96. He’s very versatile, can do everything a bit (he can shot the ball, has amazing basketball IQ-courtvision-passing skills etc.).

To become leader and winner player on the highest level (Euroleague), he needs to improve his attitude and mentality. Those 2 things are biggest question mark for his future. If he wants, he can score 38 points in senior level, just like he did it against Ankara D.S.İ ERA in 6th week of TB2L. But if he wants, he can finish the game with 2 points, 8 turnovers too.

On Turkish Prospects #4 we will have Ege Arar and Ediz Oktay (’96) soon.

 

Photo: FIBA Europe / Gintaras Siuparys

Twitter of the author: @HCanPelister