Written with the help of artificial-intelligence tools and checked by automated controls.
Anadolu Efes did not let the locker room stew for long. Two days after Mike James’s injury against Crvena zvezda, the Istanbul club officially announced the arrival of Cameron Payne, a 32-year-old American point guard who spent time in the NBA and has already appeared in the Euroleague. The timing says almost everything: Efes loses its offensive leader, then goes out and finds a player capable of handling the ball, speeding up the game and surviving European pressure.
A signing dictated by urgency
Mike James, recruited as a major piece of the Turkish project, injured his Achilles tendon during the trip to Belgrade.
The sequence was brutal for Pablo Laso. Mike James, recruited as a major piece of the Turkish project, injured his Achilles tendon during the trip to Belgrade. The club then confirmed surgery and an estimated absence of between seven and nine months. For a team aiming for a solid start in the Euroleague, this is not a simple setback: it is a change of plan as early as autumn.
Efes therefore chose an immediate response. Payne has committed through the end of the 2026-2027 season, according to the club’s announcement. This detail matters. He is not merely a medical joker brought in to fill three weeks while they wait and see. The message is firmer: the club wants to install a point guard for the long term, absorb the James shock and prevent the season from heading in a strange direction before winter even arrives.
Payne already knows the European turn
On paper, Cameron Payne arrives with a clear résumé: 14e pick in the 2015 NBA draft, eleven seasons in the United States, with stints in Oklahoma City, Chicago, Cleveland, Phoenix, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. But the most interesting part for Efes may lie elsewhere. Payne has already tested the Euroleague with Partizan, where he averaged around 12.4 points and 3.9 assists over ten games.
That brief spell did not make him a veteran of the continent, but it means he will not arrive without any reference points. He knows that spaces close quickly, that possessions come at a high price and that a trip to Athens, Belgrade or Kaunas is nothing like a pleasant tourist tour. That is valuable for a club that cannot afford to wait two months for him to adapt.
His latest stretch of the season was played in Philadelphia, in a rotation role with the 76ers. Figures reported by the specialist press point to a player still capable of providing scoring, secondary playmaking and a dose of pace. He is not Mike James, obviously. No one mechanically replaces the leading scorer in Euroleague history at the snap of a finger, even with a carefully crafted press release.
What Efes can really expect
The question, then, is not whether Payne will replicate James. It is whether he can make the Turkish offense more stable, protect the remaining playmakers and give Laso a reliable option when defenses turn up the pressure. Efes began its European campaign with mixed signals, including a 77-72 defeat against Crvena zvezda. In this context, every poorly handled possession quickly starts to smell like a structural problem.
Payne brings a left hand, experience and the ability to change gears. He also brings an unknown: his competitive condition after a summer without an NBA franchise and his ability to settle into a hierarchy that has already been shaken up. The long-term contract gives him time, but the Euroleague never gives you much of it. The October appointments will quickly show whether Efes has found a solid bandage or a genuinely new backbone.
For Laso, the work starts now. He will have to integrate Payne without reducing the responsibilities of the other core players, adjust the half-court sequences and restore confidence to a team that had just lost much more than a scorer. The signing has the merit of being quick and coherent. The court will show whether it is also sufficient.