I’ve been a draftnik as long as I can remember.

As a kid, I’d scour the internet for any information I could find on future prospects, celebrating gleefully if I stumbled upon video highlights, rare in the years before YouTube and social media.

In 2001, Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol, and Eddy Curry were selected one through four, respectively, in the NBA Draft. Brown, Chandler, and Curry were all taken straight out of high school, and Gasol was an import from Spain, where he was a solid contributor on a talented FC Barcelona team as a 20-year-old. Despite my dogged pursuit of information in the months leading up to the draft, I had never seen any of these four men play.

Today, things are much different. With a few clicks, you can find 1080p, 60fps highlights of the top recruit in the Class of 2021, and a quick Google Video search of this year’s top-rated recruit, Ben Simmons, comes back with approximately 3,420,000 results. Information is everywhere, and NBA teams and fans alike are benefitting. But still, the internet has its blind spots.

For those of us interested in taking our amateur scouting abroad, the advances of the modern age have been slower. Sure, finding information on 2015 Draft prospects Mario Hezonja and Kristaps Porzingis is far easier than it was to do the same with Pau Gasol more than a decade ago, but it’s still more difficult than one would imagine.

For the past eight months, I’ve tracked the play of the Sixers’ 2014 lottery pick, Dario Saric, as he’s put together a marvelous season with Anadolu Efes in the Turkish Basketball League. But despite his high profile and the relative success of basketball in Turkey, full box scores are difficult to find and game highlights are even scarcer.

In a way, the shroud of secrecy that surrounds Saric’s play abroad only adds to the excitement about him as a prospect and the anticipation for him eventually joining the Sixers. But here, on the Transatlantic Tracker, we look to shed light and offer what information we can about the play of a prospect who figures heavily into the organization’s future plans.

Saric has appeared in 57 games with Efes this season, starting 44 of those contests and logging the bulk of his minutes at the two forward positions; occasionally, he lines up at center when head coach Dusan Ivkovic goes with a small ball lineup.

Ivkovic, born in Serbia in 1943, has held more than a dozen coaching positions across in Europe since 1978, and while his coaching methods are decidedly “old school,” he is surprisingly forward thinking in one regard – minutes allocation.

No player on Efes logs more than 27 minutes per game, and Dario Saric, who averages 24.2 minutes per game, ranks third on the team in minutes played this year. But despite reduced minutes, the 21-year-old has put up impressive numbers in his first season with Efes.

On the year, Saric is averaging 10.6 points (45.9 FG%, 32.3 3P%), 6.3 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game. But more impressive than the stats he’s posted has been the versatility he’s put on display.

Standing 6’10” and weighing somewhere around 240 pounds, Saric plays with a level of physicality that belies his age. Playing in a professional league that features opponents and teammates 10 years his senior, the Croatian forward is at his best working out of the post. Out of the low post, he has the strength, footwork, and touch to back his man down towards the hoop and finish through contact, and in the high post, he is a triple threat, possessing the ability to knock down shots from midrange if his defender sags off, the quickness and handle to blow by them and finish at the rim if they play him too closely, and the vision to find cutting teammates with pinpoint passes.

But as Saric has grown increasingly comfortable within Efes’ offense over the course of the season, more and more of his production has come on the perimeter. Over the first 42 games of the season, 81.3% of his offense came inside the arc and at the free-throw line. During that span, he averaged 15.0 points per 36 minutes and posted a respectable 49.4% effective field goal percentage. His true shooting percentage for this period was 54.4%, and he made 29.5% of the 88 three-pointers he attempted in 1,005 minutes of play from October through March.

But since the beginning of April, Saric has averaged 17.4 points per 36 minutes and has posted an effective field goal percentage of 53.6% and a true shooting percentage of 56.8%. Those bumps in production have come as a direct result of greater efficiency from long range – 27.6% of his points have come off of three-pointers over his last 15 games versus just 18.7% during his first 42.

All season long, Saric has slowly but surely improved his outside shot, rebounding from an 11-for-51 (21.6%) start from distance through the first 23 games of the season to make 32 of his last 82 three-point attempts in the 34 games since, good for a 39.0% conversion rate. Over his last 15 games, he’s made 17 of the 45 threes he’s attempted, a 37.8% clip.

But what makes Saric one of the best prospects to come out of Europe in recent memory is his creativity and ability to make plays as a big man. On the year, he’s averaged 3.4 assists per 36 minutes and is 13 helpers shy of being the team’s TBL season leader in that category, trailing only guards Thomas Heurtel and Matt Janning; Saric does lead the team in points scored (11.2 PPG) and rebounds (6.3 RPG) in league play this season. Over Efes’ last 15 games, Saric has posted 43 assists, good for 4.0 per 36 minutes.

On Tuesday, Saric’s Efes team defeated Turk Telekom in a 93-75 romp, besting them in the third game of a three-game series that was the team’s first the TBL Playoffs. In that three-game set, Saric shared the team lead for points with veteran center Nenad Krstic, scoring 46 points (15.3 PPG) on 63.3% shooting to go along with 18 rebounds (6.0 RPG) and seven assists (2.3 APG) in 81 minutes played (27.0 MPG). He went 5-for-12 (41.7%) from beyond the arc during the series.

Anadolu Efes, winners of a league-high 13 titles since their inception in 1976, are looking for their first TBL Championship since 2009. As a result of Efes’ 22-8 record in league play last season, they entered the playoffs as the #2 seed, and after defeating seventh-seeded Turk Telekom they’ll face fifth-seeded Trabzonspor in a best-of-five series that begins on Friday.

Make sure to check back for updates as Dario Saric and Anadolu Efes make their championship push.