{"id":479929,"date":"2026-01-20T15:58:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T14:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=479929"},"modified":"2026-01-20T15:59:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T14:59:45","slug":"turkish-president-erdogan-meets-shaquille-oneal-in-istanbul-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/turkish-president-erdogan-meets-shaquille-oneal-in-istanbul-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish president Erdo\u011fan Meets Shaquille O\u2019Neal in Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"228\" data-end=\"455\">Turkish President <strong data-start=\"246\" data-end=\"287\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan<\/span><\/span><\/strong> met NBA legend <strong data-start=\"303\" data-end=\"344\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Shaquille O&#8217;Neal<\/span><\/span><\/strong> on Tuesday in Istanbul, in one of the most unexpected crossovers between sports and politics in recent memory.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"457\" data-end=\"756\">The meeting took place on the court of the <strong data-start=\"500\" data-end=\"541\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Turkcell Basketball Development Center<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, the state-of-the-art arena that serves as the home of <strong data-start=\"597\" data-end=\"638\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Anadolu Efes<\/span><\/span><\/strong>. Erdo\u011fan and O\u2019Neal posed for photos in a relaxed and informal atmosphere, quickly drawing attention on social media.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"758\" data-end=\"1063\">Opened in late 2024, the Basketball Development Center is owned by the <strong data-start=\"829\" data-end=\"870\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Turkish Basketball Federation<\/span><\/span><\/strong> and functions as a central hub for Turkish basketball. In addition to hosting Anadolu Efes games, the venue is also used by Turkey\u2019s men\u2019s and women\u2019s national teams across all age categories.<\/p>\n<h3 data-start=\"1065\" data-end=\"1110\">O\u2019Neal\u2019s ongoing connection with Turkey<\/h3>\n<p data-start=\"1111\" data-end=\"1413\">While the meeting itself was surprising, Turkey is not unfamiliar territory for O\u2019Neal. In recent years, the four-time NBA champion has visited the country multiple times, appearing as a DJ at events in both Istanbul and Antalya, further strengthening his unique off-court connection with Turkish fans.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1415\" data-end=\"1591\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">The encounter between Erdo\u011fan and O\u2019Neal once again highlighted basketball\u2019s global reach \u2014 capable of bringing together figures from vastly different worlds on the same court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkish president and NBA legend pose together at the Turkcell Basketball Development Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":479930,"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":[399,313],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-479929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-turkey"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/01\/422532.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479929","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=479929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479929"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=479929"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=479929"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=479929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}