Turkish player Korkmaz signs with Sixers
The young shooting guard may be cleared in time to play with the team in the summer leagues.
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SALT LAKE CITY — Furkan Korkmaz is officially a 76er.
The Turkish basketball player signed his rookie contract Tuesday here at the Sixers hotel. It happened days after Korkmaz secured a buyout from his Turkish team Anadolu Efes and received FIBA clearance.
"We are happy to have Furkan Korkmaz join us in Philadelphia this year where we feel he will be best positioned to develop physically and acclimate to the NBA game," Sixers president Bryan Colangelo said in a statement. "Furkan is another talented young player that we are excited to have in our program."
The Sixers are in town for the Utah Jazz Summer League. They are scheduled to play Utah at 9 p.m. Wednesday at the University of Utah's Jon M. Huntsman Center.
As of Tuesday evening, the Sixers were still working on details to see if Korkmaz will play in Wednesday's game and/or any other summer-league matchup.
The Sixers will face the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday before traveling to Las Vegas to compete in the NBA Summer League from Saturday through July 17, pending they reach the championship.
The holdup could be the 19-year-old's participation with Turkey's under-20 team, which will compete in the U-20 European Championship from July 15-23 in Greece.
The Sixers drafted the 6-foot-8, 192-pound Korkmaz with the 26th pick in the 2016 NBA draft. He was still under contract with Efes.
Terms of the deal were not announced, but Korkmaz was slotted to make $1.2 million this season. However, the Sixers could have paid him 20 percent more than that, and might have done so considering Korkmaz's buyout was for $2 million. NBA teams are permitted to contribute only $675,000 to buyouts.
A standout three-point shooter, Korkmaz could help the Sixers reach their dreams of contention in a few seasons.
He was named this season's best young player of the Basketball Champions League, which is composed mostly of European teams. Efes had loaned him out to Banvit, which plays in the BCL and the Turkish Basketball Super League.
The shooting guard averaged 10.4 points and shot 48.8 percent on three-pointers in 10 BCL games with Banvit. He averaged 8.4 points and shot 34.4 percent on threes in 16 Turkish games with the club.
He did play in 12 games for Efes before being loaned to Banvit in December. He averaged just 4.4 points and 12.1 minutes despite shooting 50 percent in 10 Turkish games with Anadolu Efes. He averaged 1.5 points and 6.5 minutes and missed his lone three-pointer in two EuroLeague games with the club.