Ermal Kuqo ( tr, Ermal Kurtoğlu; born February 12, 1980) is a retired Albanian-Turkish professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player who played the majority of his career for Efes Pilsen. He is also a basketball executive for the

Los Angeles Clippers The Los Angeles Clippers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Clippers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division in the league's Western Conference. The Clipper ...

of the NBA working as Director of International Pro Player Personnel. He is widely accepted as the greatest Albanian basketball player of all times. Kuqo was a part of the Turkish national team from 2004 until 2010, but in the summer of 2010 got granted the wish to play for his birth country Albania national team.

Professional career

Kuqo started his career in Tirana playing for SK Tirana during the 1994-95 season in the Albanian Basketball League at the age of 14. He was one of the youngest professional players of the league at the time. At the age of 15, Kuqo moved away from Albania to Istanbul, Turkey where he signed a long term deal with Fenerbahçe. After having spent 4 years with the team from Istanbul, Ermal moved to the United States to continue his studies and play in college. He played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

Fort Scott Community College Fort Scott Community College is a community college in Fort Scott, Kansas, United States. It has satellite buildings in other cities in Crawford County, including Pittsburg and Frontenac, along with sites in Paola and at the Hillsdale Learning ...

in Fort Scott, Kansas and Seminole State College in

Seminole, Oklahoma Seminole ( sac, Sheminônîheki) is a city in Seminole County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 7,488 at the 2010 census. Seminole experienced a large population growth in the 1920s due to an oil boom. History The city was platted i ...

, United States for a then young

Chris Beard (basketball) Christopher Michael Beard (born February 18, 1973) is an American basketball coach who was most recently the head coach at the University of Texas at Austin for the men's team. He previously coached at Texas Tech, Little Rock, Angelo State, and ...

who is now one of the most respected

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

college coaches in the United States. As he was immediately eligible to play in the

Ermal signed a National Letter of Intent to play at the University of Tulsa after his successful season at Fort Scott, Kansas to play for the legendary coach Bill Self. But Bill Self left the University of Tulsa a couple of weeks after Ermal had signed his NLI and the University hired coach

Buzz Peterson Robert Bower "Buzz" Peterson Jr. (born May 17, 1963) is an American basketball executive who is the assistant general manager for the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has also coached college basketball, most re ...

. Ermal did not see himself fit in coach Peterson's system and immediately asked to be released from his commitment, a wish that the school did not grant. This forced Kuqo to go back to

NJCAA The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), founded in 1938, is the governing association of community college, state college and junior college athletics throughout the United States. Currently the NJCAA holds 24 separate regions ...

and he transferred to Seminole State College and reunite with

. Both coaches have repeatedly spoken highly of Kuqo throughout the years After his sophomore season at Seminole State College, Kuqo signed a Letter of Intent with

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sy ...

in the

to play for the legendary

Bobby Knight Robert Montgomery Knight (born October 25, 1940) is an American former basketball coach. Nicknamed "the General", Knight won 902 NCAA Division I men's college basketball games, a record at the time of his retirement, and currently fourth all-t ...

, but because of his previous European pro career, he got ruled ineligible. After that he decided to come back to Europe and continue his career with the famous Dalmatian team

KK Split Košarkaški klub Split ( en, Split Basketball Club), commonly referred to as KK Split or simply Split, is a men's professional basketball club based in Split, Croatia. The club competes in the ABA League and the Croatian League. History The c ...

(ex-Jugoplastika). After a frustrating season with the Žuti he finally had his breakout season with the Slovenian club KK Pivovarna Laško, averaging almost 13 ppg and 7 rpg in the

Adriatic League The ABA League, renamed to the ABA League First Division in 2017, is the 1st-tier regional men's professional basketball league that originally featured clubs from the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Mac ...

. In the summer of 2003 Ermal signed a two-year contract with the Turkish powerhouse Efes Pilsen, coached by

Oktay Mahmuti Oktay Mahmuti ( mk, Октај Махмути; born 6 March 1968) is a Turkish-Macedonian professional basketball coach. Mahmuti is well-known for coaching defense, particularly during his time with Efes and Benetton Treviso. He is currently un ...

, where he had an immediate impact both in the EuroLeague as well as in the Basketball Super League ( tr, Basketbol Süper Ligi; BSL), establishing himself as one of the premier players of the team, winning back to back championships in 2004 and 2005. Minnesota Timberwolves @ Efes Pilsen October 6, 2007

Minnesota Timberwolves @ Efes Pilsen October 6, 2007

At the end of 2007-08 season Kuqo signed a two-year deal with Pamesa Valencia. He had a very up and down and inconsistent season, especially after

Neven Spahija Neven Spahija (born 6 November 1962) is a Croatian professional basketball coach who was most recently the head coach for Bitci Baskonia of the Liga ACB. He spent four years in the NBA as an assistant coach with the Atlanta Hawks and Memphis G ...

took over from

Fotios Katsikaris Fotios Katsikaris (alternate spelling: Fotis) (Greek: Φώτιος Κατσικάρης, born 16 May 1967) is a Greek professional basketball coach and a former professional basketball player, he was most recently head coach for the Unicaja Málag ...

in mid November. Most of the time coach Spahija preferred

Kosta Perović Kosta Perović ( sr-cyr, Коста Перовић; born February 19, 1985) is a Serbian former professional basketball player. He represented the Serbian national basketball team internationally. In the 2006 NBA draft he was a second-round selec ...

and

Matt Nielsen Matthew Peter Nielsen (born 3 February 1978) is an Australian professional basketball coach and former player who currently serves as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He served as an as ...

playing together and was considering Kuqo to be a surplus to requirements. In late January he suffered a calf injury that put a stop to his playing time for at least a month, and that took Ermal out of the rotation. Even though he started the pre-season preparation with Valencia the next year, Kuqo and the team decided to part ways in early September and Kuqo after that signed a contract to come back to Efes Pilsen. After two frustrating seasons, his old coach

offered Kuqo a contract to play for Galatasaray Spor Kulubu, offer which Ermal immediately accepted. He had a chance to show his best self playing for Galatasaray in 2010–11 season where together with

Preston Shumpert Preston Anthony Shumpert (20 August 1979), also known by his Turkish name of Mert Shumpert, is an American-born, naturalised-Turkish professional basketball player. He was twice named to the All-Big East first team while playing college basketball ...

they led the team in scoring at 11 ppg and took their team to their first playoffs final since 1990 where they lost to a powerful Fenerbahçe team 4-2. At the end of that season Ermal was selected as a unanimous All Turkish League selection and Turkish League Center of the year by the prestigious basketball website Eurobasket.com. In June 2011, Ermal agreed to a two-year contract to play again for his former team Efes Pilsen. On July 12, 2013 Ermal signed a contract to play for Dimitrios Itoudis at Banvit BK, now Teksüt Bandırma. He was the team's co-captain and stayed with the team for one year. During the season Banvit won the regular season and was the number 1 seed for the playoffs, but later lost to the eventual champions, Galatasaray in the semifinals. In the summer of 2014, Kuqo signed with Darüşşafaka & Doğuş for the 2014–15 season, once again reuniting with his former coach

and serving as the team's captain. In June 2015, he signed with

Türk Telekom Türk Telekom is a state-owned Turkish telecommunications company. Türk Telekom was separated from Turkish Post (PTT) in 1995. Türk Telekom Group provides integrated telecommunication services for PSTN, GSM, and wide-band Internet. The Türk ...

for the 2015–16 season. On August 27, 2016 he announced his retirement from basketball via his

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account.

National team career

In the summer of 2004, facing a choice of national teams he selected

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

, which gave him the opportunity to compete in the highest level competitions, such as EuroBasket and

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

. Ermal's Turkey national team career reached its peak in the

2006 FIBA World Championship The 2006 FIBA World Championship was the 15th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship for men's national teams. The tournament was hosted by Japan and held from 19 August to 3 September 2006. It was co-organised by ...

where they reached the 6th place. Ermal's best game in the tournament came against Lithuania where he scored 24 points and secured his team's win and also the 6th rank of the tournament. After playing for the Turkish side in two European Championships (2005, 2007) and a World Championship (2006), in 2010 he decided to ask FIBA to grant him permission to play for his native country of Albania. He led Albania in scoring in the summer of 2010 in FIBA's Division B games averaging 19 points per game. He represented the Albania national team for 4 years.

Post-playing career

Ermal Kuqo started to work closely with the EuroLeague media department after finishing his playing career and is a regular fixture on the league's website's Experts Round Table series for the last 4 seasons. He was one of the Euroleague Ambassadors during the

EuroLeague Final Four The EuroLeague Final Four is the final four format championship of the European-wide top-tier level EuroLeague professional club basketball competition. The Euroleague Basketball Company used the final four format for the first time in 2002, f ...

held in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

in 2017 and took active part during the activities set up during the event. Ermal was the host of one of the

2017 promo mini documentaries featuring Istanbul as the only player to have played for all Euroleague teams of 2016–17 season from

. The documentary featured Ermal having conversations with several prominent names leading and representing Turkish basketball in several hotspots around the city of Istanbul. The highlight of the documentary is the casual dinner with two of the greatest coaches in the history of the Euroleague,

Željko Obradović Želimir "Željko" Obradović ( sr-cyr, Желимир "Жељко" Обрадовић, ; born 9 March 1960) is a Serbian professional basketball coach and former player who is currently the head coach for Partizan of the ABA League, the Basketba ...

and

David Blatt David Michael Blatt ( he, דוד מיכאל בלאט; born May 22, 1959), is an Israeli-American professional basketball executive. He is also a former coach and player. Blatt played point guard at Princeton University from 1977 to 1981 and p ...

. The mini-film has had over 100k views on Youtube.The Insider EuroLeague Documentary Series presented by Turkish Airlines: "Istanbul: Hoops Hub"
/ref>

LA Clippers

On the same date he announced his retirement from professional basketball, Ermal Kuqo accepted an offer to become a scouting consultant for the

of the NBA. On September 30, 2018 Ermal was promoted to full time International Scout for the

. On July 1, 2019 he was promoted to Director of International Pro Scouting Personnel for the

Personal life

Kuqo's father Robert and uncle Artan are basketball idols in his home country

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

. Kuqo came to

when he was 15. He gained Turkish citizenship in 1997 and because of Turkish laws had to change his last name to Kurtoğlu. He used his Turkish last name Kurtoğlu when he played in the Turkish league, but in the Euroleague and other European competitions he played as "Kuqo". Ermal is married and he is fluent in Albanian, English, Italian, Turkish, Croatian and Spanish.

Awards and achievements

* Albanian Junior Championship Champion - '94 * Slovenian League All-Star Game -'03 * Turkish President Cup Winner - '05, '06,'09 * Turkish League Regular season Champion -'04, '05, '09 * Turkish League Champion - '04, '05 * Turkish League All-Stars Game - '05, '07, '08, '11*, '13; (*did not participate due to injury) * Turkish Cup Winner - '06, '07 * Eurobasket.com All-Turkish League Center of the Year - '11 * Eurobasket.com All-Turkish League 1st Team - '11 * Eurobasket.com All-Turkish League Domestic Players Team - '11