Laso's Efes grab first win, Martinez's Real Madrid still at zero

European basketball never lacks overlapping stories. The latest round of the EuroLeague witnessed a detail that anyone following Pablo Laso's journey would pause at: his Anadolu Efes picked up their first win, improving to 1-1, while Real Madrid – the team Laso led for 11 years – still sits at zero after two matchdays. The Spanish tactician left Real in 2026, and now he is on the other side of the trench, in the colours of a Turkish giant. Meanwhile, his compatriot Pedro Martinez is already hearing the first whispers about a hot seat. But if we stop there, we are only reading a scoreboard brief. The more relevant question is: do two games really reveal anything about the nature of these two teams, or are they merely echoes of a past that has not yet been quieted? The context of this round is more unusual than one might think. Efes secured their first victory under Laso at the Basketball Development Center – their home floor – after losing their opener. That is a sign of recovery, but only a dot on the long map of the season. Real Madrid, the club that once embodied Laso in European competition, are in the unwanted position of having no wins at all. They will chase their first points in a far from comfortable setting, as their away game against Hapoel Tel Aviv will be staged at the neutral Arena 8888 in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. A neutral-site game due to regional security concerns – a reality the EuroLeague has had to adapt to in recent seasons. The schedule is also dense: Efes will travel to Belgrade to face Crvena Zvezda, while Real – after the Sofia game – will continue their long journey. Anyone reading the calendar closely will notice: these two teams are on completely different paths in terms of geography, schedule, and pressure. At the core: the Efes win and the Real Madrid loss, if viewed through a tactical lens, do not give us much data. There is no mention of offensive efficiency, defensive rating, or scoring effectiveness. I cannot claim Laso adjusted Efes' offensive system, or that Martinez has a rotation problem, because this news brief does not provide that information. But that absence is itself a message. The narrative is framed around the names of two head coaches – 'Laso's Efes', 'Real of Martinez' – rather than around any star player. That suggests the editors viewed this as a chapter in the rivalry between two Spanish coaches, between a past and a present. To me, that is a deliberate editorial choice. Basketball is a sport of stars, but sometimes the story is shaped by those standing outside the lines, on the bench. A former coach returning to the highest level and facing his own old club – that script always has a particular appeal, but it can also make us forget that the season is very long. The contrarian point is that we are assigning too much meaning to an early stumble. Real Madrid at 0-2 and Efes at 1-1 – if we look at EuroLeague history, these numbers carry almost no predictive value. The EuroLeague regular season lasts dozens of rounds, and the first two games usually do not reflect the true strength of any team, especially when schedules and travel distances are uneven. Efes fly to Belgrade, Real fly to Sofia to play a neutral-site contest – those are not ideal conditions for evaluating form. We are looking at a former champion and one of Europe's most traditional giants, and thinking that two losses mean a crisis. But the truth lies in the gap between the facts: the gap of workload, of post-transfer mental state, of a team still trying to define its identity. I have followed enough seasons to know that what happens in round 2 is usually a deliberate lie – or at least, a whisper not yet worth believing. The biggest lesson of this round is not in the standings. It is in the question: what shape will Laso build for Efes, and how will Martinez cope when the shadow of his predecessor is still long? Basketball never ends with the final buzzer; it ends with a question. And the question for Real Madrid is whether the winless streak will extend, turning an 'early-season blip' into 'a story about a changing dynasty'. For Efes, the question is whether this victory is the foundation of a machine run by one of Europe's sharpest tactical brains. In a season where variables are scattered across airports and schedules, both teams have reasons not to panic. But precisely because of that, things become more interesting: when there is no data, people are the only thing to hold onto.