German basketball fans were hoping that Dirk Nowitzki would return to the national team for a run at the 2009 EuroBasket title after fulfilling a life-long dream of playing at the 2008 Olympics. But Nowtizki decided to keep good on his promise to the Dallas Mavericks to take a summer off. And German national Team head coach Dirk Bauermann is left to rebuild his squad which could be missing as many as six Olympians and has little realistic chance of challenging for a podium finish in Poland.
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| Jan-Hendrik Jagla |
Germany come into EuroBasket 2009 stuck in the middle of two eras - one the later stages of the Dirk Nowitzki age and the other the start of the much-dreaded post-Nowitzki epoch. Germany's most talented player ever was torn whether or not to take this summer off from the national team after playing 11 of the past 13 off-seasons for Deutschland. The only two years where he didn't play were the 2000 and 2004 Olympics - where he would have loved to have played. Now the harsh reality is setting in. Midway through the preparations, German head coach Dirk Bauermann asked basketball fans in his homeland to throw their support behind his 2009 EuroBasket side, which will be featuring plenty of new faces - most of whom will be relied upon to carry Germany into the future.
Gone of course is Nowitzki and Chris Kaman, but also missing from the Beijing side which placed tenth of 12 teams with a 1-4 record in the 2008 Games are long-time veterans Pascal Roller and Robert Garrett while Philip Zwiener was unable to build upon his fine last season to retain his spot in Bauermann's side.
The 2009 German team will instead be led by versatile big man Jan-Hendrik Jagla, who won the ULEB Cup in 2008 and played Euroleague with Joventut Badalona last season. Playmaker Steffen Hamann will be called upon to increase his role in the team, especially at the offensive end. The other veteran leadership comes from the likes of Sven Schultze and Demond Greene, the latter of whom originally said he would take a summer to rest before changing his mind to return to the national team.
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| Elias Harris |
Bauermann's team is loaded with top quality, young forwards and centers. In addition to Jagla, Tim Ohlbrecht is still an enormously talented center at 21-years-old as is 19-year-old Tibor Pleiss. Should he make the squad, Pleiss would be an example of the future talent that Bauermann wants to integrate into his senior side - also out of a matter if necessity since Germany's system failed to develop many prospects in the previous couple generations. Elias Harris and Robin Benzing are both just 20 years old and on the cusp of making the 2009 EuroBasket side while Per Guenther and Lucca Staiger are both 21, Johannes Lischka is 22 and Heiko Schaffartzik is still just 24 years of age.
What Bauermann lacks is a difference maker in the backcourt. That could change with the arrival of Staiger. The Iowa State University sharpshooter averaged 8.2 points a game for the Cyclones, scoring in double figures 11 times including 24 points against Drake. Staiger's ability to fit into the national team in his first tournament with the senior side could play a big role in Germany's success. A long-time prospect in the Alba Berlin system who has bounced around in the past few years, Schaffartzik is also ready to bring his fine showings in the German BBL league to the national team side, where he has never played.
Without Nowitzki, Bauermann is not trying to make anybody believe his German squad is a title-contender - much less to get out of a group with defending champions Russia, Latvia and the qualifiers. Instead, Bauermann hopes giving his talented youngsters a chance to play will help bring them to the next level - and perhaps eventually add hardware to Germany's trophy case.
