Anadolu Efes has reinforced its interior rotation by signing center Bruno Fernando to a two-year contract, the club announced Friday, giving the Turkish side a veteran big man with NBA and EuroLeague experience.
Fernando arrives from Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade after finishing the 2025-26 season with 8.4 points, 4.4 rebounds and 62.7 percent shooting on two-point attempts across 32 EuroLeague games. He also opened the year at Real Madrid, where he played five EuroLeague games before moving to Partizan and later added more frontcourt depth in Belgrade’s domestic campaign.
The 27-year-old Angolan has already shown he can score efficiently around the rim. In the EuroLeague last season, he converted 62.8 percent of his shots from the field with Partizan, while averaging 18.0 minutes per game. Across all of his 2025-26 EuroLeague appearances, he finished with 8.2 points and 4.4 rebounds in 33 games for Partizan and 5.0 points in four EuroLeague games for Real Madrid.
Fernando’s path to Istanbul runs through six NBA seasons. He spent time with the Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets and Toronto Raptors before making the move to Europe, and his most productive NBA season came in 2023-24 with Atlanta, when he averaged 6.3 points and 4.3 rebounds in 45 games.
The move comes at a time when Efes has been reshaping its roster. The club has already lost Shane Larkin, Vincent Poirier, Nick Weiler-Babb, Rolands Smits, Saben Lee and Sehmus Hazer from last season’s EuroLeague team. At the same time, Efes has added Dario Saric, Matthew Strazel and Santi Yusta, and Fernando now gives the club another experienced piece to anchor the paint.
That frontcourt help matters for a team that finished 12-26 in the 2025-26 EuroLeague regular season and sat 19th in the standings. The roster leaned heavily on guards and perimeter creation, with Larkin, Jordan Loyd, Saben Lee and PJ Dozier carrying much of the scoring load.
