Fenerbahçe's offseason makes sense looking at one stat column. Last season they allowed 3,061 points in 38 games—the lowest among EuroLeague's twenty teams—while scoring 3,114, the sixth-worst in the competition. They won 24 games with that impossible balance, finished fourth, and fell one game short of the final. Now Šarūnas Jasikevičius has spent the summer signing scorers.
The Starting Point
Fenerbahçe closed the 2025-26 regular season with 24 wins and 14 losses, fourth of twenty, with a point differential of just +53: the worst among the six teams that made the playoffs directly. They beat Žalgiris 3-1 in the quarterfinals and fell in the Final Four semifinals in Athens against Olympiacos, who would go on to win the championship. They arrived as defending champions and didn't retain the title.
Behind closed doors, the season was flawless: they won the Turkish Cup in February, with Tarik Biberović as Final MVP, and closed out the BSL with their thirteenth title and Wade Baldwin named Finals MVP. They also had the longest winning streak in the EuroLeague: nine straight victories between January 16 and February 25.
A team like that doesn't need a rebuild. It needs to score.
Who's Leaving
Eleven departures. The most sentimental: Nando De Colo, who retired. The most painful sportively: Biberović, who left for the Dallas Mavericks after signing off on the best season of his career.
The rest emptied the entire bench: Devon Hall to Olimpia Milano, Mikael Jantunen to Real Madrid, Armando Bacot and Bonzie Colson to Maccabi, Arturs Zagars to Zhejiang, Metecan Birsen to Beşiktaş, Khem Birch to Aris, Brandon Boston to Crvena Zvezda, plus Jilson Bango and Mert Emre Ekşioğlu. Nearly the entire interior rotation from last season has departed all at once.
Who's Arriving
Nine signings, finalized July 30 with Johnny Juzang's arrival. And one obvious common denominator.
The summer's marquee move in Turkey has a name: Shane Larkin crosses to the rival after eight seasons at Anadolu Efes. He averaged 15.1 in efficiency rating last season and lands at point guard where Horton-Tucker, Baldwin, and newly arrived Trent Forrest were already stationed—Forrest arriving from Baskonia with the opposite profile: defense, ball-handling, and few turnovers.
On the perimeter, two veterans with extensive résumés. Shavon Shields signed a two-year deal after six years at Olimpia Milano and arrives with two All-EuroLeague Second Team selections on his resume, and Will Clyburn appears from Barcelona at 36 years old with a track record of deciding games in April. The group is completed by Juzang, coming from Zenit, Braxton Key from Valencia, and Ignas Sargiūnas from Rytas.
The interior is rebuilt with two names: Marcus Bingham arrives from UNICS Kazan and Sertaç Şanlı returns home from Beşiktaş, in his second stint with the club.
Who's Staying
Here's the difference from other rebuilds. Fenerbahçe has changed eleven roster spots but has protected the skeleton.
Baldwin and Horton-Tucker, both in the EuroLeague 2025-26 All-Second Team, remain the team's axis. Nicolò Melli, Chris Silva, and Melih Mahmutoğlu renewed; the captain is entering his fourteenth season with the club. Onuralp Bitim completes the continuity block. And on the sideline, Jasikevičius with a contract through 2029.
The Keys
The arithmetic of offense. Everyone Fenerbahçe signed can shoot. Larkin, Shields, Clyburn, Juzang, and Key are five players who create and score on their own. If defense stays at last season's levels, that team is a title contender. The "if" is not minor: several of the interior players who sustained those numbers have left.
Too many hands for one ball. Larkin, Baldwin, Horton-Tucker, Forrest, Sargiūnas, Juzang, Mahmutoğlu, Bitim. Eight pure perimeter players, and behind them Shields, Clyburn, and Key asking for minutes. Jasikevičius will have to leave people off the roster each week, and in locker rooms with hierarchy, that comes with a price.
Age. Clyburn is 36, Melli 35, Larkin 33, and Shields 32. It's a roster built to win now, not to last three seasons. The advantage: nobody has to learn what a EuroLeague playoff series is.
The Paint. Silva and Melli sustain, Bingham provides verticality and Şanlı brings experience, but the interior rotation is shorter and less physical than last season's. Against teams that play inside—Olympiacos, Real Madrid—that's where the test will be.
The Forecast
Champions in 2025, semifinalists in 2026. With that starting point, the bar can only be the Final Four, and this roster has more than enough talent to get there.
The doubt is of another kind: Fenerbahçe has fixed what it lacked at the cost of touching what already worked. If Jasikevičius can get a group with so many scorers to keep defending like last year, he'll be the heavy favorite. If not, it becomes a spectacular team that will have too many points in March and lack a stop in May.
Full Roster
Point Guards and Shooting Guards: Shane Larkin (5'11"), Melih Mahmutoğlu (6'3"), Wade Baldwin (6'4"), Talen Horton-Tucker (6'4"), Trent Forrest (6'4"), Ignas Sargiūnas (6'5"), Onuralp Bitim (6'5")
Small Forwards: Shavon Shields (6'7"), Johnny Juzang (6'7"), Will Clyburn (6'7"), Braxton Key (6'8")
Power Forwards and Centers: Nicolò Melli (6'8"), Chris Silva (6'9"), Sertaç Şanlı (6'11"), Marcus Bingham (7'0")