Hakan Demirel

Hakan Demirel — Biography

İsmail Hakan Demirel is a retired point guard who won the 2006-07 league title with Fenerbahçe and played for the Turkish senior national team at the 2006 World Championship and EuroBasket 2007. Silver medals with the junior national sides marked the early part of his career; he retired from basketball in 2018.

He began in the Tofaş academy, was named the best young player of the Second League in 2002 and won a Second League title in 2004. After moving to Fenerbahçe he won the league title and the President's Cup in 2006-07; in 2007 a move to the NBA was talked about, but he withdrew from the draft. In 2009 he finished runner-up in the Turkish Cup. He played for Erdemirspor in 2010-11 and in August 2011 signed a one-year contract with Fenerbahçe Ülker. In later years he wore the colors of Darüşşafaka, Antalya BB, Royal Halı Gaziantep, Tofaş, Uşak Sportif, Trabzonspor and İstanbul BB.

With the youth national teams he won silver at the 2004 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship and the 2006 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship, and bronze at the 2009 Mediterranean Games. He received the most valuable player award five times in youth categories. With the senior team he reached sixth place at the 2006 World Championship, and in 2007 he was ranked 10th among Europe's best young players. He studied at Istanbul Bilgi University.