Italian Coach Recalls the Cedi Osman Deal: The President Asked 'Who Is the Best?' and Closed It Himself

In elite sport, big deals rarely begin with a spreadsheet. They begin with a question. And at a basketball club trying to find its way back onto the European map, that question was placed directly in front of its Italian head coach by the president: "Who is the best?" According to the coach's own account, that moment was not a tactical meeting. It was a test of power. The president did not ask, "What kind of player do we need?" or "What does your system require?" He asked, "Who is the best?" And the answer, once given, automatically became a verdict. The coach recounted: "We were three levels below the level we wanted to reach, and we still are. We needed a key player at the number 3 position. The president asked me: 'Who is the best?'" At first, he assumed the president was merely curious, merely gathering information. He replied that among all the names the coaching staff could think of, the best at the number 3 position was Cedi Osman, but that the player had a contract. It was an honest answer, a safe answer, and a useless one. "He did all the rest," the coach said. "He knew we needed a move to show our presence, to say that we are back and that we have goals. This transfer happened outside my control." And then, at the end of the story, came a more telling line than all the others: "I am not waiting for anything. I am just waiting for the next training session and the next game. The EuroLeague issue is a question management has to answer." Three sentences. Three layers of meaning. And a deal that, on close reading, exposes almost the entire machinery of modern European basketball: a president who decides, a coach pushed to the margins, a player turned into a media symbol, and a position on the court — the number 3 — sanctified to the point where it can shape an entire project. The context: why one position became the centre of a whole deal To understand why the answer "Cedi Osman" carried such weight, it must be placed in the current context of European basketball. Over the past two decades, the number 3 position — the small forward — has undergone a transformation bigger than any other position on the floor. If in the 1990s and 2000s the small forward was mainly a spacer, a mover off the ball, and an occasional three-point shooter, today's number 3 carries three jobs at once: guarding the opponent's wing, spacing the floor from beyond the arc, and, in many systems, acting as a secondary playmaker. That is why big clubs are willing to pay a high price for a complete number 3. A good small forward can plug several tactical holes at once: he makes the defensive system more switchable, he keeps the offence from depending on a single scorer, and he gives the coach an extra option when a game grinds into a stalemate. In modern basketball, the team that controls the number 3 position usually controls the rhythm of the game. The Italian coach did not say this abstractly. He spoke of "three levels" of distance between reality and ambition. Three levels in European basketball is no small gap. It can be the distance between a EuroLeague team and a team only good enough for the domestic cup. It can be the distance between a quarter-finalist and a team eliminated in the first round. And in an ecosystem where broadcasting rights, sponsorship contracts and European qualification slots are interwoven, those three levels can be converted into millions of euros of annual revenue difference. When the president asked "who is the best", he was not asking about a player. He was asking about a signal. In European basketball, where the difference between teams often lies not in systems but in individual class, signing a name like Cedi Osman is a message to the entire market: we are no longer at the bottom. In my years analysing injuries and tracking transfer moves, I have learned that most big deals in Europe are driven by two things: structural need and symbolic need. The first belongs to the coach. The second belongs to the president. And when those two needs collide, the latter usually wins. Who Cedi Osman is, and why he is the answer to the number 3 position Cedi Osman was born on 8 April 2026 in Ohrid, North Macedonia, into a family of Turkish origin. He stands around two metres tall, plays small forward, and was properly developed at Anadolu Efes, one of the best academies in Turkish basketball. From 2026 to 2026 he played professionally at Efes, building experience in both the domestic league and the EuroLeague. In 2026 he moved to the NBA to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers and stayed with the franchise until 2026, going through the post-LeBron James era as Cleveland shifted from contender to rebuilding team. During that period he left a mark as a versatile small forward: a steady three-point shot, eager defence, and a moderate ability to create his own offence. He then played for the San Antonio Spurs in the 2026-24 season before returning to Europe. For a player who spent years in the NBA, a return to Europe always carries two meanings. First, it is an admission that the top door in North America has closed. Second, it is a chance to become a genuine star in a league whose format allows an individual to have a bigger impact. In the NBA, Cedi Osman was always a supporting actor. In the EuroLeague, he can be the centre. That is why the name Cedi Osman has such pull for a club trying to come back. He is not merely a good player. He is a brand. He brings a Turkish fan base, media attention, and an implicit statement: the club that signs him is genuinely serious about its ambition. But seen through the eyes of a sports-medicine analyst, the story is not so simple. When a player turns thirty, the body no longer responds the way it once did. For a number 3 — a player who must run a lot, guard opposing wings, constantly rotate, accelerate and decelerate — the workload across a EuroLeague season can exceed a thousand competitive minutes, not counting training sessions and friendly games. Every injury does not lie, but it speaks its own systemic language. At thirty, a number 3 rarely gets injured from a single incident. His knee, his ankle, his groin are usually the result of a chain of compensations accumulated over years. When the right ankle weakens after a sprain, the body shifts weight to the left leg. When the left leg is overloaded, the knee tries to compensate. When the knee compensates for too long, the groin and lower back begin to complain. It is a domino chain nobody sees on television, yet it shows clearly in every load-tracking dataset. When the left shoulder compensates for the right, the body has silently rewritten its map of pain. For Cedi Osman, a player who has played hundreds of games in the NBA, the EuroLeague and the Turkish national team, that map was certainly written long ago. The question is not whether he gets injured. The question is which system carries him, and whether that system can manage his load. Why the president acted so quickly One detail in the story caught my attention above all. The coach said the president understood the club needed "a move to show our presence". He did not speak of a tactical need. He spoke of a need to exist. In modern European basketball, a club's existence is not decided only on the court. It is decided by EuroLeague entry, sponsorship contracts, fan base and media reach. A team without stars struggles to sell tickets, struggles to sign big sponsorships, and struggles to convince EuroLeague organisers that it deserves a wild card. That is why the president did not wait for the coach to build slowly. He went straight to the biggest name. In the logic of a businessman, the question "who is the best" is not about finding the technically optimal solution. It is about finding the commercially optimal one. Cedi Osman, as a Turkish star, gives the club a double advantage: he is good enough to play the number 3, and famous enough to sell tickets and shirts. In a market where every club fights for attention, such a signing carries value far beyond the box score. This explains why the coach said the deal happened "outside my control". He was not denying his role in proposing the name. He was simply admitting a simple truth: in modern basketball, the coach does not decide who arrives. The payer does. But "he did all the rest" means the president negotiated himself, persuaded himself, handled the contract issues and the fees himself. For a player under contract, signing him requires negotiating with the parent club, paying a transfer or release fee, and convincing the player that the new project is worth leaving his current position. That is not a coach's job. It is the job of someone with money and power. Across many European clubs, presidents and coaches clash over how to build a roster. The coach wants a player who fits the system. The president wants a name that makes noise. When the two cannot reconcile, the coach usually leaves. In this case, the coach appears to have chosen to step back. He offered the name, let the president do the rest, and then said he was waiting for nothing. This is a remarkable way to behave. In an industry where coaches' egos are often weighed in the balance, admitting "this transfer happened outside my control" is a sign of realism, or of exhaustion. I once followed a similar situation at another club. The coach there was also asked about a signing he had never wanted. He replied: "My job is to coach the players who are here." Three weeks later, he was fired. In European basketball, a coach who tells the truth often does not last long. Why this story matters more than one contract The story of Cedi Osman and the president is not just a transfer. It is a pattern. It shows that the line between sporting power and financial power is increasingly blurring. Over the past twenty years, European basketball has seen power shift from coaches to presidents and investors. Formerly, a coach like Zeljko Obradovic could decide an entire roster. Today, even legendary coaches must accept that some signings are decided upstairs, where the balance sheet matters more than the playbook. From another angle, the story also shows the maturation of the Turkish basketball market. For decades, Turkish clubs were seen as spenders without strategy, buying stars to satisfy presidential egos and then failing on the court. Here, we see a different logic: the president understands the club needs a signal, the coach understands the player can fill a short-handed position, and both aim at a shared goal. The difference between a successful signing and a failed one usually lies not in the price. It lies in the fit. A good player in the wrong position becomes a bad investment. A modest player in the right position becomes a vital link. The number 3, as discussed, is the hardest position to fill in modern basketball. So signing a player who can play it, even at a high price, is often cheaper than trying to patch it with internal options. I wonder whether this coach, when answering the president's question, was aware he was handing over a weapon. He may have thought that merely naming Cedi Osman proved the deal impossible. But he underestimated the president's resolve. In basketball, as in any entertainment industry, the one with money usually finds a way to turn the impossible into the possible. The contrarian angle: a deal completed without the coach There is a paradox here that few notice. The coach said the deal happened outside his control, yet he was the one who named the player. He proposed Cedi Osman, then denied responsibility for his arrival. It is a subtle argument, and worth dissecting. First, it can be read as a way to avoid blame if the deal fails. If Cedi Osman plays well, the president takes credit. If he plays badly or gets injured, the coach will not be blamed for "requesting" the signing. It is a very common psychological defence among coaches. Second, it can be read as genuine belief. In European basketball, a coach often has no say in contract negotiations. He can only propose; management decides. In this case, the president bypassed the coach to negotiate directly, turning a suggestion into a deal. But the most interesting part is the last line: "I am not waiting for anything." It is a sentence of surrender. A normal coach, having landed a player like Cedi Osman, would talk about ambition, goals, what the club can achieve. But this coach spoke of passive waiting: waiting for the next training session, the next game. The schedule does not kill players; it merely exposes a system weaker than we think. And in this case, that system is the club's power structure. When a coach no longer controls personnel, when the president directly intervenes in sporting matters, the club operates on a logic different from that of the court. The question is: can a club built by its president succeed? The history of European basketball gives no simple answer. Some clubs succeed because the president spends on stars. Others collapse because the president meddles too deep in the coach's work. The difference lies in whether the president listens, and whether the coach has the strength to work with players he did not choose. In this case, the coach seems to have chosen acceptance. He did not object, did not threaten to resign, did not publicly criticise the president. He simply told the truth. And sometimes, in an industry where everyone must say the right things, telling the truth is itself an act of courage. Sports medicine risk: the pain map of a thirty-year-old number 3 Back to my professional angle. When a player like Cedi Osman joins a club at thirty, three risk groups must be assessed. The first is accumulated injury risk. For a player with more than a decade at professional level, his body has been through hundreds of games, thousands of training sessions and countless collisions. Small traumas, vague pains, unreported sprains — all accumulate over time. At thirty, those traces begin to show more clearly. The second is recurrence risk. If a player has previously injured a specific area, the chance of recurrence there is above normal. For a small forward, the usual problem areas are the ankle, knee, groin and lower back. These injuries affect not only the ability to play but also the style of play. A player who has suffered an ankle injury tends to avoid sudden changes of direction, which reduces his effectiveness in defensive situations. The third is adaptation risk. When a player moves from the NBA to the EuroLeague, he must adapt to a different style, a different schedule and a different medical system. In the NBA, clubs have vast medical resources, with dozens of specialists tracking every metric. In the EuroLeague, those resources are often fewer, and the player must take more responsibility for managing his own body. Recovery is not the shortest path to the finish line, but a map that measures every threshold of tolerance. For Cedi Osman, that threshold has been measured over many years. The question is whether his new club can read that map. I once followed a similar case. A player with years in the NBA returned to Europe on a big contract. In the first half of the season, he played very well. But by January, as the schedule tightened and his body began to speak, he suffered a groin injury. He returned after three weeks, played ten more games, then suffered a knee injury. The season ended early for him, and the club lost a big investment. That is why I always look at injury history before the box score. A player may score twenty points a game, but if he cannot play sixty games a season, his true value is far lower than it appears. For the Italian coach's club, managing Cedi Osman's load will be one of the hardest tasks of the coaching staff. He will have to play the number 3, facing the fastest and strongest players on the opposing side. He will have to move constantly, contest, absorb contact. If the staff has no clear load-management plan, injury risk will rise month by month. An unchecked heart is like an unread contract: the story ends before it begins. In this case, that heart is the player's body. If the club does not examine closely, does not monitor closely, its most expensive signing may end in an unforeseen injury. The transfer market and the logic of money To understand why this deal was pushed at presidential level, one must look at the financial structure of European basketball. Unlike the NBA, where every team obeys a strict salary and spending cap, European basketball operates on a freer logic. Clubs can spend as much as they can afford, as long as they do not breach the financial fair play rules of the league they join. This means a rich club can buy stars with cash, while a poor club must build through internal development. In such a market, signing a player like Cedi Osman is not just a sporting decision. It is a business decision. Such a star can boost ticket revenue, social media following, the club's commercial value, and its chances of being invited to European competitions. For the president, the question "who is the best" is not technical. It is about economic value. He wants to know which player can bring the most value to the club, on and off the court. Cedi Osman, as a Turkish star, meets both criteria. That is also why the coach could not object. If he objected, he would be seen as someone who does not understand the club's business pressures. If he agreed, he would be responsible if the deal failed. The only way to protect himself was to distance himself from the decision and say everything happened outside his control. In years of analysing the transfer market, I have noticed a rule: the most successful coaches are not those who buy the most stars, but those who know how to live with stars they did not buy. The ability to adapt to decisions outside one's control is a quality no less important than the ability to design training drills. The Italian coach seems to understand this. He did not resist. He simply spoke. And in his silence there is a message: I will work with what I have. A Vietnamese angle: a view from a league learning to grow up As a Vietnamese watching international basketball for years, I cannot help asking what this story means for Vietnamese basketball. In Vietnam, we are at a stage of development where the number 3 position is still not properly recognised. Domestic clubs often build around a foreign centre or a domestic scoring guard. The small forward is often seen as a supplementary position, reserved for players not good enough to play guard or not tall enough to play forward. But in modern basketball, that is a costly misunderstanding. The number 3 is the most flexible position on the floor. A good small forward can defend multiple positions, shoot threes, create for teammates, and act as a bridge between offence and defence. In advanced basketball nations, teams often build around the number 3, because it allows the most flexibility at both ends. The Cedi Osman story shows a club willing to spend big and bypass even its coach to fill the number 3. That is a lesson for Vietnamese basketball: if we want to compete at continental level, we cannot ignore this position. We need to develop tall, skilled players capable of playing the number 3 from a young age. But there is another aspect of the story I find more striking. It is the way a coach speaks about the limits of his own power. In Vietnamese basketball, coaches often hold enormous power, sometimes beyond management. In Europe, things are more complex. The line between sporting and managerial power is frequently blurred. If Vietnamese basketball wants to grow, we must learn to divide power more clearly. Coaches should handle sporting matters. Management should handle business. When each side invades the other's territory, the club usually fails. It is a rule proven many times, not only in basketball but in every team sport. I once watched a Vietnamese club change coaches three times in one season, each for a different reason. But looking at the root of the problem, I realised the real cause was not the coach. It was the club's power structure, where nobody truly knew who was in charge. If Vietnamese basketball learns from the Cedi Osman story, it can avoid many mistakes. An open conclusion When the president asked "who is the best", he was not awaiting a tactical answer. He was awaiting a name. And when the name came, he did not waste time debating tactics. He simply bought it. The Italian coach, who said his club was three levels below where he wanted to be, accepted a reality that he could not change the world through training sessions. He could only prepare for the next game. And perhaps that is the only thing he can control. The signature of a recurrence is not in the twist of the body that day; it was signed weeks earlier. In the case of this deal, that signature may have been signed even longer ago: in a meeting, in a question, in a nod. And the true story of the season will be written later, on the court, when the names have arrived and the bodies must pay the price. The question left for the reader is not whether Cedi Osman will play well, but whether a club built by its president's questions can find its answers on the court. In basketball, money can buy names. But it cannot buy cohesion. And cohesion, like everything else in sport, is decided only by time, health, and the tolerance of the bodies running on the floor.