basketball
Almost without world champions: DBB team starts in European Championship qualification
Working on the squad for the European Championship qualifiers: Gordon Herbert. photo
© Daniel Reinhardt/dpa
The German basketball players are playing in Germany again for the first time since winning the World Cup. But the stars are missing. National coach Herbert has to do a puzzle again.
After all, the team that starts the European Championship qualification against Montenegro in Ludwigsburg this Thursday (7:30 p.m./Magentasport) has almost nothing to do with the team that was responsible for the greatest success in the history of the German team on September 10, 2023 Basketballs had taken care of.
Dennis Schröder, the Wagner brothers, Daniel Theis – they all work in the NBA. In addition, Euroleague players Andreas Obst, Isaac Bonga, Niels Giffey, Johannes Thiemann, Johannes Voigtmann and Maodo Lo are getting some much-needed time off. Since Justus Hollatz also had to cancel for health reasons, David Krämer is the only World Cup champion that spectators will see in the MHP Arena and three days later in Bulgaria.
“It’s still nice to be back here,” said Krämer, who now plays for Granada in Spain. “Sure, there are a lot of new faces. But it’s always something special to play for Germany,” said the former Braunschweiger, who hopes to be part of the squad again at the Olympic Games in Paris in the summer.
The next target
The chances of that happening are good. Because if everyone stays fit, Herbert won’t have much reason to make changes to the squad. When the Canadian took over the position of national coach in September 2021, he asked all players to promise to commit to the national team for three years. Home European Championships in 2022, World Cup in 2023 and the Olympics in 2024 – that is the cycle that Herbert had in mind when he took office. And he has been extremely successful so far with European Championship bronze and World Cup gold.
The Olympic Games in Paris are supposed to be the crowning moment in August, but that is still a long way off for Herbert. “Our goal is to qualify for the 2025 European Championship. We now have two games and of course we want to win them,” said Herbert. The first three teams in the eight groups of four will qualify for next year’s European Championships in Finland, Latvia, Poland and Cyprus. In addition to Montenegro and Bulgaria, Sweden also belongs to the German group.
“Two wins – that’s what it’s all about. After these two games I’m thinking about the Olympics,” said Herbert, who celebrated his 65th birthday on Friday at the “Night of Legends” in front of the top four of the Basketball Bundesliga.
Hope for the boys
Of the players he is working with in this national team window, apart from world champion Krämer, only Nick Weiler Babb, Oscar Da Silva or Jonas Wohlfarth-Bottermann have a small chance of making it into the Olympic squad. For the young players in particular, it’s all about getting a taste of the national team.
“We want to give them a bit of a taste,” said Herbert, referring to players like the 18-year-old center Johann Grünloh from Rasta Vechta. After all, they can become important after the three-year cycle, if one or two veterans from the World Cup heroes decide to take a step back from the national team.