No Euroleague, less budget: According to Euroleague-off: A turning point is waiting for Alba Berlin’s basketball players

After the season is before the season. Two weeks after the early playoff-out, a complicated summer started at Alba Berlin. Missing Euroleague stimuli, a sinking budget and US unis make it difficult to change. By Jakob Lobach

Tim Schneider, Jonas Mattisseck, Malte Delow – in the past few years the trio of Alba Berlin has formed a kind of sanctuary of the Berlin basketball. Even in times of major upheavals, the Berlin native were always fixed pillars. Three home plants that symbolically stand for the fertile youth work of the association, which offer him a vibration -proof foundation even in difficult times.

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“One of the hardest summer”

As a result, Alba Berlin was shaken down properly, as Tim Schneider last week after 14 years and 477 play his farewell from Berlin. It was a first symptom of the turning point that awaits the club this summer. A upheaval in which it will be important to the long, highly acclaimed, but most often criticized sports director Himar Ojeda. However, this has to deal with a falling budget and the consequences of the Euroleague party.

“It is one of the hardest summer I have had so far,” says Ojeda in an interview with RBB | 24. In the past summers, the latter had to save in his squad planning. In other words, he had to rely on the development potential of young talents. The only, but insurmountable big problem: Unlike his earlier bets – especially Luke Sikma, Johannes Thiemann or Simone Fontecchio – the youngest did not work.

Still still inexperienced actors such as Gabriele Procida and Mateo Spagnolo, but also tried and tested leaders like Louis Olinde left their great potential as much as possible. Now staying in Berlin is at least in question, as with many other Alba players. At Edelwerfer Matt Thomas and Big Man Yanni Wetzell, he is almost close, and even the Alba also personally very connected Martin Hermannsson should be difficult to keep.

Albas squad is reduced

Himar Ojeda does not want to confirm any further departures, at the same time he says: “These are players who want to continue to play in the Euroleague and know the money that the teams can pay for them there.” For players like her, Alba is now only to a limited extent that Alba is now, where the big stage of the Euroleague was exchanged for the Champions League.

The result of the upcoming farewell is that Alba will probably go into the coming season with more new than known faces. In addition, it will probably only be twelve instead of 15. But these twelve players also have to be found first. “Through the Euroleague, we most recently belonged to a group on the market directly after the top teams like Madrid or Fenerbahce,” says Ojeda, “now we compete with the clubs in the Eurocup, in the Champions League and the financially strong Spanish league.”

Albas budget also shrinks

The biggest challenge is the significantly smaller player budget with which the Berliners will go into the coming season. “We pay as much rent as no club in Europe,” said Managing Director Marco Baldi recently on Albas website to. In addition, there are falling ticket revenues through fewer home games in the Champions League against less attractive opponents as well as lower sponsorship money and lack of income from the messed up previous season.

According to Ojeda, the financial hole that arises is drastic. The approximately eight million euro budget, which Alba including social security contributions had for his men’s team last season, should therefore shrink by several million this summer.

This also makes the dreams around the big German basketball names into illusions. Last summer, Alba’s follower whispered over the world champions Johannes Voigtmann and Maodo Lo. This summer the highly assessed but internationally inexperienced Norris Agbakoko Albas German Royal Stransfer remain. Replacing the departures of Schneider and the naturalized Wetzell describes Ojeda as “almost impossible”.

Anticipation despite many challenges

Among other things, because Elias Rapieque recently said goodbye to a US college. As one of the most recently many Alba owners, the 21-year-old decided against the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) and for the even greater money. This summer alone, four other top German talents did the same. Himar Ojeda speaks of 500,000 to 1.5 million euros each, which the quintet around Rapieque and Vechtas Johann Grünloh will earn annually in the United States. In the BBL, also in the extended circle of the German national team, such sums would suddenly turn 18 to 21-year-olds into top earners.

Despite all these complicated aspects in Ojeda’s difficult summer, the Spaniard credibly explains to look forward to the coming weeks and months. After all, an upheaval always means that you can correct a squad that is only partially balanced and make something new. And although this has turned out to be difficult in the past summer, Alba’s sports director has repeatedly proven in the past that he is very able to do so – for example in summer 2018 when he built the playful basic structure for Albas and years in the Euroleague.

Hope gives that Alba, according to Ojeda, will continue to have the second highest budget of the BBL despite the budgetary cuts – and of course the NBA Europethat waves around on the horizon. Alba has recently been officially declared a big destination and could ensure the next large, then more positive Berlin basketball duct in a few years.

Sending: RBB24 Inforadio, June 9th, 2025