Gazmend Sinani

Gazmend Sinani — Biography

Gazmend Sinani was one of the first players to represent Kosovo's national basketball team. A 2.06 m center, he was also known in Turkey as Aydın Okçu, and held Kosovan, Turkish and Swedish citizenship. His career, which ran from 2008 to 2018, took him through the Balkans and Turkey and finally to England; he was a Leeds Force player when he died in a car accident in the summer of 2018.

His best-known season in Kosovo came with Sigal Prishtina, where he won the national league, the Kosovo Cup and the Balkan League, averaging 6.0 points and 5.6 rebounds a game in the domestic competition. On 11 September 2016 he joined Bashkimi Prizren, and on 3 November of the same year he moved to Muğla Ormanspor, a side in the Turkish Basketball First League. In November 2017 he signed with Rahoveci. Helsingborg BBK, Malbas and Fenerbahçe were also among his clubs. On 26 January 2018 he left the Balkans for the first time, signing with the British Basketball League side Leeds Force on a contract to the end of the season.

He made his official debut for Kosovo on 31 August 2016, in a EuroBasket 2017 qualifier against Slovenia. On 23 June 2018, the day after his 27th birthday, he was seriously injured in a car accident in Gjakova and died of his injuries; three other Kosovo national team players and a physiotherapist were hurt in the same crash, but all survived.