Okur has provided Pistons strong support as rookie

For him, it was natural. Okur’s father had played the game until a back injury halted his career at age 20. Mehmet always thought he would be a soccer player, too. But a phone call changed that.

He was 14 when a family friend told his father how basketball coaches in Bursa, a 50-minute bus trip from Abdullah Okur’s home in Florya, Turkey, were talking about his son. They said the boy moved like a point guard. And the boy was growing.

So, for a little money, Mehmet Okur agreed to an offer to join this new team, this new sport he had played only when the fields at his school were too muddy for soccer.

"I was so bad at first in basketball," Okur recalled as he flailed his arms, giving the impression he was once as coordinated as a newborn calf. "The first two times, I miss lay-ups. But they tried hard to teach me every day. When I started to see myself getting better, I thought, ‘I want to be a good player one day. I want to take care of my family.’ "

Okur, a Pistons rookie forward, shrugs and smiles. He points to a basket at the team’s practice gym.

"This rim," he says. "This is where I became a Piston. I will always remember. It was so fast."

In a way, it did happen just like that.

Okur’s success in adjusting to the NBA game — not to mention, adjusting to a new country — has occurred so quickly that he can offer the precise day of the week when he first worked out for the Pistons.

Okur must have been impressive. He had similar tryouts with nine other teams, but the Pistons went ahead the next day — on June 27, 2001 — and made him their second-round pick, the 38th selection overall, in the NBA draft.

Okur, one of two Turkish players in the league — Sacramento’s Hidayet (Hedo) Turkoglu is the other — became the first foreign-born player to be drafted by the Pistons. He signed a two-year, $2.1-million contract last Aug. 21.

A gamble? It was a surer move than you might think.

Since then — after spending last season with his Turkish club, Efes Pilsen — Okur has been one of the Pistons’ most pleasant surprises. Okur was the find of Tony Ronzone, the Pistons’ director of international scouting. Joe Dumars, the team’s president of basketball operations, made the decision to draft him.

"I remember sitting there with Joe watching the workout," Pistons coach Rick Carlisle said. "We both said, ‘This guy can really shoot the ball.’ "

Okur participated in the workout with another free agent, Ratko Varda of Yugoslavia, who like Okur spoke little English at the time. As John Hammond remembers, Okur and Varda played one-on-one, taking turns with their backs to the basket. That confirmed what the Pistons already knew: Both were capable inside players.

"But then, Okur stepped out to the perimeter and started spot shooting, from 20 feet and out," said Hammond, the Pistons’ vice president of basketball operations. "His range was excellent."

Dumars, in full appreciation of the moment, turned to Carlisle.

"This guy can be in the lottery off of what we’re seeing," he said.

"No kidding," Carlisle agreed. "Nobody else knows about this guy?"

Now here it is, 22 months later, and Okur, 23, is wrapping up another practice, leaning his 7-foot, 249-pound body against a mat under a basket and chatting with assistant coach Kevin O’Neill.

At the moment, Okur is penciled in as the starter for Ben Wallace in the Pistons’ playoff opener at 12:30 p.m. Sunday against the Orlando Magic at the Palace.

But Okur knows that it could easily change, just like that.

Wallace, who has been out since April 6 with a strained ligament in his left knee, is expected to be ready to play Sunday after missing six games.

But in Wallace’s absence, Okur has responded solidly, averaging a team-leading 8.5 rebounds during that time. In the Pistons’ double-overtime victory at Memphis last Sunday, Okur scored 13 points, with a key three-pointer late in the game, and pulled in a career-high 12 rebounds in 44 minutes.

"I think we’d have to say Mehmet’s reaction to the recent opportunity has been very positive," Carlisle said. "He’s a sponge; he wants to know everything there is to know. All along, Mehmet has been a very dependable player in the clutch."

Never was that more evident than Monday night, when Okur sank the second of two free throws with 18 seconds left to lift the Pistons to an 89-88 victory over Cleveland. The victory gave the Pistons the top seed in the East and secured home-court advantage throughout the conference playoffs.

"I believe his experience in playing in important international games has prepared him mentally for some of those situations in the NBA," Carlisle said. "I wasn’t concerned at all when he went to the line. I thought he would make them both, actually, but at the very least, he’d make one of them. To me, what was impressive was the sequence of events leading up to the free throws — the scrambling to get a rebound. It was a defensive play that led to the free throw and, ultimately, the game-winning play."

Okur has played in 72 games for the Pistons, starting nine. He finished the regular season averaging 6.9 points a game. But most impressive has been his rebounding; he is averaging almost five rebounds a game, second on the team, behind Wallace. Okur also has practically doubled his playing time since mid-November, from 10.2 minutes to his present 19.0 a game.

Regardless of how much he plays in the playoffs, Okur pledges to be ready.

Friendly but reserved, Okur has significantly improved his English since the season started. Still, he prefers a quiet lifestyle. Especially on road trips, where he is known to politely decline his teammates’ invitations to dinner in favor of room service.

"To be best, you need rest," Okur said matter-of-factly, his mop of brown hair framing his dark eyes and sleepy smile. "Did I tell you something felt wrong in the beginning, when I come here? I was nervous. Different roads around here. Where am I going? It makes you tired. But now, I am, as you say, more adjusted. So I want to sleep to be ready all the time. I want to stay in the NBA. I want to be a good player in the league. So when someone calls me for dinner . . ."

Okur pretends to pick up a ringing telephone.

"Thanks for calling me," he says. "I need rest. Have a good dinner!"

The numbers vary each game, but there usually are more than a dozen in attendance during home games — members of the Detroit area’s Turkish-American community cheering for No. 13 and yelling, "Haydi Mehmet!" (Let’s go Mehmet!)

For Okur and his longtime girlfriend, Esen Yilmaz, who are engaged to be married, the support has made the miles between their homeland and the house they rent in Rochester Hills seem not as far.

There are about 3,000 Turkish families in Michigan, about 400 of whom are members of the Turkish American Cultural Association of Michigan, said Bill Halacoglu, the organization’s president.

"He’s a very positive influence in our small community," Halacoglu said of Okur. "I’ve been to about four games this year. I plan on getting season tickets next year."

On March 30, nearly 100 Turkish Americans attended the Pistons’ game against the Sacramento Kings at the Palace, where Okur played against his friend Turkoglu in their first NBA matchup.

One member of the Turkish-American association stayed up all night, stitching red letters onto tank tops that spelled out "Memo" — Okur’s nickname — that her friends wore to the game.

"Those people in Michigan gave him such a warm welcome," said Faruk Akagun, Okur’s former coach and a family friend. "They say, ‘Our house is always open to Mehmet.’ "

In February, Okur attended his first social function with the Turkish group, eating gyros and swapping stories.

Friday night, Okur took Yilmaz and his parents, who are visiting from Turkey, to the Farmington Hills home of Nurten Ural, a 46-year-old native of Turkey who has become one of the family’s closest friends in Michigan.

Ural had a special meal prepared, including serving a meat pie called borek.

"Memhet does miss the Turkish food," Ural said.

When Okur is on road trips, his fiancee keeps company with a watchdog he bought for her at the beginning of the season. The dog, a rottweiler, is named Met.

"She named the dog to remind her of me," Okur said. "We play too many away games, so I wanted to buy the dog for her. He is a little dangerous, but he’s the man of the family. He is like our son."

Watching all of this from afar — keeping a long-distance eye on Okur’s progress from Istanbul — is Akagun, the coach probably most responsible for Okur’s success.

Long before Okur became a star in his late teens for Efes Pilsen and the Turkish national team, Okur was trying to learn all he could as a 16-year-old on Akagun’s Oyak Renault team before he was recruited away by Tofas Bursa.

"At the time, his teammates were all older and stronger than him," Akagun explained by phone this week from Istanbul. "We had to make Mehmet ready."

That meant spending two extra sessions a day with his protege in far-ranging workouts. In the mornings, Akagun made Okur run timed track workouts. In the afternoon, there was an additional session of individual drills aimed at using Okur’s superior agility.

Except for a break for lunch and film work, Okur’s training lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.

"After some days, Mehmet would look at me, exhausted, and say, ‘Coach, I suffer,’ " said Akagun, now employed by the Pistons as an international scout. "We worked hard, but Mehmet had great willpower. He is the most intelligent player I have ever seen as a big man. And, he can move like a point guard."

Even here, in his short time in the NBA.

"It’s like he’s been here for more than one year," Pistons forward Michael Curry said. "He’s going to be special. He knows the game, and he has excellent touch."

Okur said: "I try to give my best for my team. I am the first foreign guy they drafted. I must play good. The playoffs are big time. It is going to be hard, it’s the last chance for the team. It will be good for us, I know."