They certainly know how to win games in the NBA at the Orlando Magic. You’ve got a talented bunch in the heart of Florida. The only thing is: All too often the club of the Berlin basketball brothers Franz, 21, and Moritz Wagner, 25, have not been successful in recent years. Here and there you take something with you in the US professional league, but it was never really sustainable. For all the talent of the team, there was a lack of fundamentals, which was always evident when things got tight in the games.
Successful basketball teams are characterized by a growing stock of knowledge, a kind of secret knowledge of how to win games with the right tricks. Orlando, on the other hand, has long been a league boot camp, a place where young pros can simply test their skills if they’re willing to endure a lot of failures. The Magic was considered a project for the day after tomorrow, there were no “soft skills”, i.e. experiences that are needed to survive night after night in the powerhouse of the NBA.
But that seems to be changing: it’s been running lately, suddenly even records are tumbled. The one-time losing squad is now close to being something of the hottest team in the league. Only the New York Knicks and the Memphis Grizzlies have longer winning streaks. In the 135:124 against the Atlanta Hawks, Orlando, inspired by the two German brothers, left the floor as the winner for the fourth time in a row. The team was still starving at the bottom of the table a few weeks ago.
Things can change quickly in the NBA, and the Wagners know that too. And as much as they were rankled by the many losses, they don’t give the impression of giving up the season; why should they, even the playoffs might still be in there. In the first quarter of the game against Atlanta, an offensive avalanche rolled over the field that had never been admired before – even when Orlando was a top team with Shaquille O’Neal and his aide Penny Hardaway.
50 points in just twelve minutes get the Magic, a club-internal record. Franz Wagner scored eleven of his total of 24 points at the start of the game, Moritz Wagner added 17 points thanks to an excellent hit rate. A lot has changed for the better since a few games. Another example: Recently against Toronto, Franz Wagner played himself into such a frenzy that he ended up with a career high of 34 points.
Franz Wagner recently played himself into a frenzy against Toronto
As in several appearances with the German national team, he hit almost everything: threes from sniper distance, lay-ups in the fray against the fiercest ring protectors and all eight free throws. The statistics meanwhile place him as one of the leading pros in finishing close to the board. Franz Wagner, 2.08 meters long and in Orlando for a year and a half, is not only an excellent pitcher, he also prevails thanks to his fearlessness and technique, deception and footwork.
Moritz Wagner has known the NBA a bit longer than brother Franz. He has been shipped from one club to another several times.
(Photo: Mike Watters/USA Today)
Then there is the attitude: “To win in this league, you have to have an enormous amount of faith in yourself and your teammates,” Moritz Wagner told the recently after an overtime win against the LA Clippers German press agency. Head thing, but not only. The Wagners are just learning what is important in a league that sends its staff across the continent more mercilessly than any other sports company. “If you don’t win for a long time, it gets more and more difficult,” said Moritz Wagner: “So you have to invest a lot for it, and that’s what we did.”
He is fit again after an ankle injury in the summer that cost him a place at the European Championships, where Germany finished third with brother Franz. His emotional nature holds the Magic youth club together. He has always been a strong-willed worker and rebounder. Moritz Wagner currently has an average of almost eleven points, his brother is even approaching the 20-point mark – making them the best Germans individually, ahead of Dennis Schröder (Los Angeles Lakers, eight) and Maxi Kleber (Dallas Mavericks, six). ).
In his fifth year in the NBA (one and a half of them in Orlando), Moritz Wagner has built up a certain distance from the glitter business of US basketball. Franz, with whom he shares a flat, also benefits from his lead in experience. The younger of the Wagners may be even more talented, but in order to get along, you need to focus again and again in the “soap opera”, as Moritz Wagner calls the NBA.
Losing, winning, the noise in every hall, flights and hotels in between, dented bones, sometimes it helps to “just let the drama be drama,” he said. And a plus is “having each other,” says Moritz. So cool thing, this family history in Florida. Especially when there are victories as well.