The two-time EuroLeague championship-winning coach is the new man in charge of Efes
Efes appoints Pablo Laso as head coach
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Anadolu Efes Istanbul announced on Saturday morning that Pablo Laso has been appointed as its new head coach until the end of the 2026-27 season. Laso arrives to Istanbul to replace Igor Kokoskov, who parted ways with the club in late November after a 5-8 start in the EuroLeague season.
Since then, Rade Trifunovic served as interim head coach, with Efes losing two more games and dropping to 18th place in the standings with a 5-10 record. Efes is also on a four-game losing streak in the Turkish League, where it has a 6-4 record.
Laso coached his hometown Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz last season and finished with a 14-20 record in the EuroLeague, before losing in the quarterfinals of the Spanish League Playoffs against eventual champion Real Madrid.
Real Madrid is the place where Laso has had enormous success, most notably guiding Los Blancos to EuroLeague titles in 2015 and 2018. The 58-year-old spent 10 seasons in charge of Real Madrid, leading the team to a 213-97 record in 310 EuroLeague games.
Under his stewardship, Real Madrid reached seven out of a possible 10 Final Fours, while the club from the Spanish capital won 22 trophies with Laso at the helm: two EuroLeague titles, six Spanish League crowns, six Spanish Cups, seven Spanish Super Cups, and one FIBA Intercontinental Cup.
In the 2014-15 and 2017-18 seasons, when Real Madrid became EuroLeague champions, Laso was named as the EuroLeague Coach of the Year in each of those campaigns.
In the summer of 2023, Laso joined FC Bayern Munich and posted a 13-21 record in the EuroLeague, but he enjoyed a much better time domestically, lifting the German League and German Cup titles. A year later, Laso returned to his hometown by penning a deal with Baskonia, and now he is joining Efes, which has been heavily depleted by injuries.
Shane Larkin will be out until early February after undergoing groin surgery, Georgios Papagiannis is out for the season following an ACL injury in mid-October, while PJ Dozier has been out since mid-November. The bright spot has been a return of Vincent Poirier, who made his first appearance on Thursday in a road loss against Valencia Basket.