{"id":478073,"date":"2026-01-09T21:35:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=478073"},"modified":"2026-01-09T21:35:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:35:27","slug":"tonye-jekiri-i-chose-partizan-over-efes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/tonye-jekiri-i-chose-partizan-over-efes\/","title":{"rendered":"Tonye Jekiri: \u201cI Chose Partizan Over Efes\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"246\" data-end=\"501\">The newest addition to <strong data-start=\"269\" data-end=\"310\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, Nigerian center <strong data-start=\"328\" data-end=\"369\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Tonye Jekiri<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, was signed to strengthen Partizan\u2019s frontcourt following the departure of <strong data-start=\"584\" data-end=\"625\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Tyrique Jones<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, who recently joined <strong data-start=\"647\" data-end=\"688\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Olympiacos Piraeus<\/span><\/span><\/strong>. However, the Nigerian big man revealed that Partizan was not his only option for a EuroLeague return.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"793\" data-end=\"973\">Speaking on Thursday ahead of the matchup with Barcelona, Jekiri confirmed that he had also been in talks with <strong data-start=\"904\" data-end=\"945\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Anadolu Efes Istanbul<\/span><\/span><\/strong> before making his decision.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"975\" data-end=\"1221\">\u201cIt was a choice between them (Partizan) and Efes, whom I also talked to,\u201d Jekiri said via <em data-start=\"1066\" data-end=\"1082\">Meridian Sport<\/em>. \u201cComing here is great; this is a big club that loves to win. I knew some guys on the team and thought it would be easy for me to fit in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1223\" data-end=\"1309\">The 31-year-old also underlined how important returning to the EuroLeague was for him.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1311\" data-end=\"1516\">\u201cI really wanted to return to the EuroLeague. I missed it. I think I still have something to offer,\u201d he added. \u201cPartizan is a big club with amazing fans. When I saw the message from my agent, I was happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1518\" data-end=\"1696\">Jekiri brings previous EuroLeague experience, having played for <strong data-start=\"1582\" data-end=\"1623\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Fenerbah\u00e7e Istanbul<\/span><\/span><\/strong> during the <strong data-start=\"1635\" data-end=\"1653\">2022\u201323 season<\/strong> before stepping away from the competition. News was reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/basketnews.com\/news-238429-newest-partizan-signing-reveals-he-had-an-offer-from-another-euroleague-team.html\">Basketnews<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking on Thursday ahead of the matchup with Barcelona, Jekiri confirmed that he had also been in talks with Anadolu Efes Istanbul before making his decision<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":478075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[191,199,297],"tags":[],"rumors":[407],"typology":[183],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-478073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aba-liga","category-euroleague","category-serbia","rumors-basket-rumors","typology-rumors"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/01\/MAN_6805.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478073"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=478073"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=478073"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=478073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}