Career: Efes Pilsen (Turkey-Div. 1, 2003-…).

Cenk Akyol is Turkey's next great hope. His brilliant fundamentals make it look as if everything comes easy to him on the floor. In fact, often it looks as if he is not trying hard enough. On the contrary he has a knack for making tough things look easy. Having played point guard as a cadet his dribbling and passing skills are excellent. He is a good shooter but not a great one yet. His enormous wingspan and his ever alert hands make him a constant steal threat.

He averaged nearly 3 steals in this year's U18 European Championship. But he does not have quick feet which can cause him trouble defensively. In the middle of the season he began getting satisfactory minutes in Efes Pilsen rotation in both in Euroleague and TBL games. But at the end of March he came at odds with coach Oktay Mahmuti and didn't even get off the bench most of the time. This hurt his development and his self-confidence.