The German basketball players started their preparations for the European Championship with big goals and reinforcements from the NBA. Coach Gordon Herbert relies on a hard core – also for later tournaments.
Dennis Schröder threw and threw and threw. While the rest of the team had already left the floor, the playmaker of the German basketball players pushed an extra shift, sinking one ball after the other after training – and thus embodied the will of the German basket hunters at the start of the preparations for the European Championship.
Herbert: “Want a medal”
“We try to give 110 percent every time, act as a team and win”Schröder said after the public training session and shouted reaching the playoff-Round out in Berlin as the first destination. The national coach formulated it clearly researcher Gordon Herbert: “We want to be on the podium, we want a medal.”
A lot seems possible
In fact, it seems for those with players from the North American professional basketball league NBA increased selection of the German Basketball Association (DBB) at the upcoming European Championships at home (September 1st to 18th) a lot is possible. Presented at the start of the three-week tournament preparation Coach Herbert in any case a team that can be seen.
In addition to Schröder, runner-up Daniel Theis (future Indiana Pacers) and the one in the expired NBAseason convincing Wagner brothers Moritz and Franz (both Orlando Magic) three other professionals from overseas at the basketball campus in Cologne.
Herbert with a three-year program
Herbert is planning the next three major event years with a permanent base of national players. “We have a three-year program. Then we have the World Cup and hopefully the Olympics. We want to form a hard core that can compete in all three tournaments.”said Herbert. In late summer 2023, the World Cup awaits in Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines, for which the German team still has to qualify. In 2024 the Olympic Games will take place in Paris.
Wagner: “A lot of talent”
“We have a lot of talent and above all players who can play well together and play for each other”, said debutant Franz Wagner. The team chemistry, which has not always been right in recent years, is “Extremely good now. I really enjoy it, so I’m very confident.” There will be a first impression of the new German team in the friendlies in Belgium on Wednesday (08/10/2022) and the Netherlands on Friday.
The decisive factor for new successes, as Schröder emphasized in the run-up to the “Braunschweiger Zeitung”, is not the number of NBA professionals, “but that we screw the team chemistry to the highest level”. If the German team is in the dressing room, even the failures of NBA professionals Maximilian Kleber (time out) and Isaac Bonga (surgery) shouldn’t matter.
Supercup and World Championship qualification are coming up
Highlights of the EM preparation, in the course of which the recently naturalized American Nick Weiler-Babb The Supercup in Hamburg (19/20 August) and the two World Cup qualifiers in Sweden (25 August) and against European champions Slovenia in Munich (28 August) are likely to join the team. At the latest then the coach has to Herbert reduce his roster from 17 to 12 players.
Schröder doesn’t want another flop
After a few disappointments with the national team, Schröder in particular wants to make his masterpiece this year. The failure at the 2019 World Cup in China, when the DBB team spoke of precious metal, but then ended up in 18th place, shouldn’t be repeated in front of their own audience.
Schröder already underlined his new desire to play in the Germany jersey in his comeback after almost three years of national team break in the summer. After an unchallenged victory against Estonia (88:57), he played a large part in the success against Poland (93:83) in early July with his personal best of 38 points and a lot of enthusiasm.