Was it the Harlem Globetrotters or German basketball players who presented their tricks against France? According to reliable information, Maodo Lo is not a member of the legendary US show troupe, but this dribble behind the back including a sugar pass to Dennis Schröder! The whole hall jumped up and it wasn’t the only scene with surprising protagonists at the start of this European Championship at home. Lo, Niels Giffey, Johannes Thiemann, these three gave the DBB team “outstanding minutes”, as national coach Gordon Herbert said. Added to this was Franz Wagner, who improved after a nervous start.
If you look at the four named, you will not be able to avoid one thing in common: they all have Berlin as a location in their resumes. Wagner, Giffey and Lo were even born on the Spree, Thiemann has been playing there for years. And if Moritz Wagner weren’t injured, it would be even more Berlin at the German Basketball Association (DBB).
Germany’s basketball is shaped by guys who found their way into professional sport at Alba or are successful there today. The German master serves as a training and further education center for many basket throwers made in Germany, so that an entire national squad with the “B” mark could be composed. With people like Louis Olinde, Oscar da Silva, Malte Delow, Tim Schneider or Jonas Mattisseck, who didn’t even make the cut this time, but also with current EM participants like Thiemann, 28, top scorer against the French with 14 points. He originally comes from Trier, but after stints in Bamberg and Ludwigsburg, he played enormously as an albatross.
Isaac Bonga returning from the NBA could fill the German vacuum in Munich
And even if he doesn’t have the NBA flair of the Wagner brothers, he is what is known as a “seasoned national player”. Although, who knows where his path will lead, he should be able to maintain his level after this start. Anyone who spoke to him before the European Championships about his role and the Berlin path heard sentences like this: “Alba simply does a good job of trusting German players and letting them play.” There are still too few Germans with a lot of time on the floor in the BBL, despite the 6+6 rule, according to which at least half of the nominees in a game need a German passport. For example, with FC Bayern, the permanent champion candidate, they only have two EM drivers in Andreas Obst and Nick Weiler-Babb.
Another Berliner: Niels Giffey showed against France why he was captain of Alba for many years.
(Photo: Marius Becker/dpa)
Isaac Bonga, returning from the NBA, could now fill the German vacuum in Munich. In Berlin, on the other hand, Germans develop more – and in roles with responsibility: as long-time captain (Giffey), creative officer (Lo) or most valuable man of the BBL finals (Thiemann). That is exactly what is special about the Alba training, he says: “The legionnaire doesn’t necessarily play 30 minutes here, but maybe 20 is enough and the remaining time a young German gets the chance to gain the necessary experience in the game.” Six Germans in the league manage to come close to such times at Alba, and only two at Bayern.
Sports director Himar Ojeda, manager Marco Baldi and coach Israel Gonzalez continue a development that took a long time to start. For many years they have been running a youth support program called “Alba macht Schule”. It is based on the fact that the club sends its youth coaches to schools, offers basketball clubs there and has founded its own youth league for school teams. “That’s how boys and girls are brought to basketball,” says Thiemann, “that gets people excited about the sport very early on and then the young players at the top really get the chance.”
He himself hardly played at the start of his professional career in Bamberg, not even “when we were 20 points ahead, that’s different in Berlin”. In the end, the Berlin program was even decisive for him to switch to Alba in 2018 – and not elsewhere. “When I came, I was already 24, so I wanted to take this opportunity, that played a role,” says Thiemann. He was “super happy that a club in Germany is showing that this is how it works”.
The Berlin block formation could prove to be a trump card in the course of the tournament
The best example of the special support is Franz Wagner, who went through the entire youth program at Alba, got his first professional minutes at 16 and then, like his brother, went to college in Michigan. Today, alongside Dennis Schröder, he is the most exciting national player and is very likely to have a long NBA career. According to Thiemann, German basketball players do whisper about such careers. The Berlin model is considered to be style-defining, it offers career opportunities, also in the direction of DBB selection. There it has long been noticed “that suddenly there are players who can immediately take on important roles”. That would only work if they felt that it was a matter of course in the club.
“In my opinion, more homegrown talent in other clubs should have an influence on the game,” Thiemann wishes, “we’re missing that a bit.” Only those who know the so-called crunch time on the field from everyday life are not afraid of tricks in the important moments at a European Championship. The Berlin block formation could still prove to be a trump card in the course of the tournament; if they advance, the German selection will play the rest of the tournament in: Berlin.