Cedi Cedi Bang Bang: Everything you need to know about the Cavs’ top pick, Cedi Osman

The Cleveland Cavaliers elected to trade out of the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft. They technically took Duke point guard Tyus Jones with the No. 24 pick, but that was a compliance-driven charade¹ — after taking Jones, they were free to trade him anywhere they pleased. They sent him to the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for picks No. 31 and 36. The 36th pick became Syracuse forward Rakeem Christmas.

The 31st pick became Cedi Osman, and it is Osman who is the subject of today’s exploration.

First things first, what’s the deal with that picture?

That picture was taken at this year’s Euroleague media day, which I highly recommend checking out. Depicted in this particular photo are Cedi with Çaylak, the mascot of Osman’s Turkish team, Istanbul-based Anadolu Efes. Çaylak is allegedly a blue tiger, though he also appears to be inspired by the likes of Buzz Lightyear (the chin) and Nigel Thornberry (the mustache/whiskers).

One essential fact about the team: It was known as Efes Pilsen from its establishment in 1976 until 2011, when it became known as Anadolu Efes. Efes is a beer giant in Turkey, and Pilsen (i.e. pilsner) is its flagship product — think of Efes as Anheuser-Busch, and Pilsen as Budweiser. This was all well and good, having the nation’s biggest beer sponsor a basketball team, until 2011, when Turkish lawmakers tightened restrictions on alcohol and tobacco advertising, squeezing Efes in the process.

The Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority, or TAPDK, issued a bylaw in May that set new ground rules for commercial advertisement, sponsorship deals and promotion campaigns in the marketing of alcoholic spirits and drinks.

The team, Efes Pilsen, was established by a major brewery company and uses the name and logo of the company’s most popular brand of beer, something that has been banned under the newly effective law. According to the law, Efes was given a year to adapt to the change, since it would not be able to use Pilsen, the Turkish for Pilsner, in its name.

Just like that, Pilsen was out. To fill out the blank space — Efes couldn’t fill up the front of a jersey by itself, could it? — the team added Anadolu, which is Turkish for Anatolia (a/k/a Asia Minor), the land mass upon which the country sits. So now you know a bit about the most successful basketball team in Turkey.

Um, so what about the player? Who is this kid? Where did he come from?

Ah yes, him. His name is Cedi (CHEH-dee) Osman. He’s a 6-foot-8, 210-pound small forward. He was born on April 8, 1995 in Ohrid, Macedonia to a Turkish father and a Bosnian (and basketball-playing) mother. The game seems to run in the family, as Cedi’s brother Dzaner plays professionally in Macedonia’s top league. One way or another, Cedi started with basketball early, and his play in Bosnia attracted the attention of Anadolu Efes scouts when he was just 13.

Osman was offered a youth league contract with the team, and so he took off for Turkey. Thanks to his paternal heritage and Turkey’s right of return laws, he was immediately naturalized as a Turkish citizen, which also allows him to represent the Turkish national teams.

After a few years with Efes’ youth and junior teams, Osman made his professional debut when he was loaned to second-division Pertevniyal Istanbul in 2011. He appeared in 32 games for Pertevniyal, starting 11, averaging about five points and two rebounds per game. He also played two games for Efes in 2011-12, averaging 14 points on 59 percent shooting.

He stayed on with Efes in 2012-13, though he barely played as a 17-year-old, seeing time in just three games due in part to injury. He became a steadier contributor in 2013-14, appearing in 41 games in both Turkish and Euroleague play.² His numbers were unspectacular, as he averaged about five points on 42 percent shooting.

This past season, he started 27 of the 66 games he played in (again, in both Turkish and Euroleague play), averaging 7.6 points and 4.1 rebounds in 20.5 minutes per game. His shooting numbers — 41.2 percent from the field, 33.1 on threes, 67.5 from the free throw line — are not particularly encouraging, but he’s still just a pup.

Eh, I’m less than moved. What else you got?

Okay, valid point: It often seems like youngsters don’t play much in Europe, and their stats are rarely impressive. Even Kristops Porzingis, the 7-footer the Knicks took with the No. 4 overall pick in the draft this year, only averaged 11 points in 21 minutes per game with Sevilla last season. So we may have to look elsewhere for excitement.

Luckily, Cedi has earned some hardware. He has played on two gold medal-winning Turkish teams: the under-18 unit that won the 2013 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship held in Riga, Latvia, and the under-20 squad that won the 2014 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship in Crete, Greece. He even won MVP of the 2014 tournament, just as current Chicago Bull Nikola Mirotic did in 2011. That performance earned an invite to the senior national team, and he played for Turkey in the 2014 FIBA World Cup.

Osman has played at Efes under head coach Dusan Ivkovic, who has a sterling reputation in Europe, particularly when it comes to developing young talent. Osman’s teammate Dario Saric, the No. 12 overall pick in last year’s draft, is among Ivkovic’s most notable pupils.

Alright, I’m listening, but that still doesn’t seem like much. Why did the Cavs draft him? Weren’t there better players available?

There may have been better players available, but that wasn’t really the issue. The Cavs have to tread lightly when it comes to taking on new contracts given the big money due to the team’s numerous free agents this summer. NBA first-round picks come with slotted salaries based on draft position, but even the estimated $1.1 million deal due to the No. 24 pick would have weighed heavily on the balance sheet: Factoring in the league’s ominous luxury tax penalties, such a contract would end up costing closer to $5 million than $1 million.

The Cavs may have been willing to foot such a bill if it came attached to a player who could contribute to a title-contending team right away, but GM David Griffin decided that no such player was on the board when the Cavs made their pick, per NEOMG’s Chris Haynes:

“We were trying to be strategic obviously and big-picture oriented,” Griffin said of the decision to trade the first rounder. “In order for us to take somebody that was going to be better than a veteran that may want to come here, they have to be able to contribute right away.

“There were guys if they had fallen we would have taken,” Griffin admitted. “It was a smaller group probably this year than most because we had to be absolutely certain.”

Since the Cavs didn’t see anyone who could come in and play immediately, it made sense for them to trade out of the first round and pick up an extra pick. The extra pick allowed them to take a chance not only on Osman, but also on the other second-round picks, Rakeem Christmas and Sir’Dominic Pointer. Second-round contracts are generally nonguaranteed, limiting the team’s financial risk.

I may have buried the lede here: Osman won’t be playing in Cleveland any time soon. He’s set to play for a couple more years in Turkey, and intends to come to the NBA in 2017, when he’ll be 22 years old. In the meantime, the Cavs don’t have to pay him.

The Cavs are fine with all of this. They get the short-term benefit of adding an asset that they don’t have to pay for, and if Osman turns out to be the next Nikola Mirotic, great. If not, it was still a swing worth taking. David Griffin made the connection of how the Bulls acquired Mirotic,³ but he sees in Osman shades of another European player who he helped acquire when he was with the Phoenix Suns: point guard Goran Dragic.

Said Griffin:

[Osman] is a player who I believe in immensely as a human being as much as a player. I believe his skill set suits us very well in terms of his athleticism, his ability to play in transition, his ability to slash. He reminds me a great deal, as a person, of Goran Dragic when we drafted Goran in Phoenix. This kid is about all the right stuff — he’s about winning basketball games before and after everything else.

This is a player I really feel confident in. He will likely stay two years in Europe, and other than the lottery picks that were taken [Porzingis and Mario Hezonja], he was by far the player we valued the most in Europe and is someone who we’re going to grow with in a very positive way. For me, two years from now, we would never be able to get a player of this caliber in the draft. Chicago did this relative to [Nikola] Mirotic at one time in the first round, and we’ve made that play here at No. 31 and added additional assets in the process.”

So can he, you know, play?

Short answer: No idea. I didn’t catch quite as many Turkish league games as I wanted to this season. Osman certainly has the size to play on the wing, and the limited videos I’ve seen on him show a solid straight-line driving game and some crafty runners and floaters in the lane.

For a longer answer, I yield the floor to Jonathan Givony of the fantastic DraftExpress. DX ranked Osman the eighth-best small forward in the 2015 draft class, and the No. 42 player overall. Here’s what else they had to say about him:⁴

He was identified as a top prospect very early on, invited to the Jordan Brand Classic International game in 2011, where he scored 14 points with 5 rebounds, 3 assists and 6 steals in 27 minutes alongside Andrew Wiggins and Mario Hezonja. That summer, he got his first taste at the Turkish national team level when he was invited to the U16 squad competing at the European Championship, where he established himself as one of the leaders of the team.

On the club level, he’s gradually increased his role year by year for Anadolu Efes, carving out a rotation role in 2013-2014 and even earning some starting nods this past season en route to averaging 20 minutes per game in the Euroleague and Turkish league, a highly impressive feat for a 19-year old.

Osman has good size for a wing player at 6-8, with a long wingspan and above average athleticism for a European prospect. His frame is on the lighter side and will be one of the challenges he’ll have to overcome, but he has excellent quickness, and is one of the smarter and more competitive prospects you’ll find in this draft class.

25% of Osman’s offense comes in transition, which is as much of an indication of his style of play as it is his role on Efes’ team. He runs the floor like a man possessed, sprinting the court on any opportunity, and scoring quite a few points both filling the lane from the wing and handling the ball in the open floor. Also a very strong defensive rebounder, he frequently will crash the glass, ignite the break and pass the ball intelligently ahead to a man streaking the court for an easy basket.

Generally speaking, Osman is not a great perimeter shooter, only hitting 33% of his 3-point attempts on the season, even if most of them came with his feet set. He didn’t show significant progress with this part of his game from last season to this, as he also converted just 33% of his attempts a year ago, on a similar volume of attempts. Osman’s struggles from the free throw line (69% this season, 68% career) suggests that he does not have great potential as an outside shooter.

Osman is a very mature prospect with a great pedigree and a clear passion for the game. He has already established a niche for himself as an offensive garbage-man who is willing to do the dirty work defensively and contribute with his unselfish mentality and strong feel for the game.

He doesn’t sound like much of a shooter, but shooting can be learned. He’s from a basketball family and it sounds like he plays with a real love of the game, so one could certainly envision a scenario in which he puts on a little weight, works out the kinks in that shot, and becomes a real NBA player. Here’s hoping.

Will we like him when he gets over here?

We should. The kid’s got a great head of hair. He may also have the acting chops to compete with Timofey Mozgov on the local commercial circuit.

1. The Cavs traded away their 2016 first-round pick in the Tyler Zeller/Jarrett Jack salary dump of 2014. Per the Stepien Rule, they could not trade away their first-rounder in back-to-back years. They could trade a player (i.e. Jones) after selecting him, but not before. [↩]
2. The Euroleague is a best-of league that includes 24 of the best clubs in Europe; membership is subject to change based on performance. This is the league that David Blatt won as head coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2013-14. [↩]
3. Mirotic was the No. 23 overall pick of the Houston Rockets in 2011, was traded to Minnesota, and then traded to Chicago; he made his NBA debut this season [↩]
4. I’ve chopped the scouting report up a bit. [↩]