Pesic setting young Germans' sites on Spain 2014 and Rio 2016

REGENSBURG (David Hein's Eye on the Future) - Sure the Olympics are going on in London and the world is waiting to see if anyone can beat the United States for the gold medal. But the future of basketball for Germany moves on to Istanbul this week as Deutschland continues working for the post-Dirk Nowitzki era.

New Germany head coach Svetislav Pesic is spending the Olympics preparing his team for the 2013 EuroBasket qualifiers - and hopefully a berth at the 2014 Basketball World Cup. And the wily veteran is planning on doing that with a promising group of youngsters who grew up watching Nowitzki win World Championship bronze in 2002 and European silver in 2005.

Just 10 years ago - when Pesic guided Yugoslavia to the Worlds gold medal in Indianapolis - 14 of Germany's current 23-man squad were 11 years old or younger, making them 23 or younger today as Germany prepare for the qualifiers.

The Germans have beaten Austria twice thus far in the second Pesic era - he won Germany's only European gold as head coach in 1993 - along with a win over Portugal and loss to Israel.

And now Pesic - a master of working with young players - is giving two promising talents a chance against Iran on Thursday and either Finland or Turkey on Friday in the mini-tournament in Istanbul.

After helping Germany to a second consecutive fifth place showing at the U20 European Championship, German U20 captain Mathis Mönninghoff and Germany's leading assist and steal man Patrick Heckmann were added to the senior team and may make their A-national team debut in Istanbul.

Mönninghoff and Heckmann- both 20-year-olds who have been learning the game at college in the United States (Gonzaga University and Boston College, respectively) - are just the latest talents to move into the German senior side - with many more to come as the country's intense youth development work bears more and more fruit.

Elias Harris, Philipp Schwethelm, Robin Benzing and newcomers Bastian Doreth and Andreas Seiferth are all just 23 but already getting to the "older" side of the German team.

Also on the 23-man squad are 22-year-old centers Maik Zirbes and Tibor Pleiß, 21-year-olds Niels Giffey and Anthony Canty as well as fellow 20-year-olds Philipp Neumann, Maximilian Kleber and Daniel Theis.

And Germany are finally producing the quantity of talent that could be expected from a country with more than 80 million people.

The next group of 20-year-olds looking to take the next step are Ole Wendt, Johannes Voigtmann, Mario Blessing and Kevin Bright while Germany have an immensely talented group of 19-year-olds including Besnik Bekteshi, Dennis Schröder, Johannes Richter, Bogdan Radosavljevic and Stephan Haukohl and Paul Zipser and Mauricio Marin are among the elite in Germany at 18 with Ismet Akpinar and David Taylor are two 17-year-olds who will be playing U18s for Germany this summer and have promising careers as well.

While there is plenty of talent in the pipeline, Pesic is fully motivated on getting Germany to the World Cup in 2014 in Spain. And it would seem he has enough talent to qualify directly to EuroBasket 2013 from the Qualification Group B along with Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Luxembourg and Sweden.

And then there is the lingering issue out there of Dirk Nowitzki, who has yet to announce his retirement from the Germany team but would be 35 at the European tournament in Slovenia.

Regardless if Nowitzki comes back or not, Pesic arrives back in Germany with big dreams. Not only does he have Spain 2014 in his sights, but the 62-year-old Serbian coaching legend is also hoping the groundwork he is laying the next few weeks ultimately leads him and Germany to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The 20- to 23-year-old German players from this summer will be coming into their prime at 24 to 27 by the time the Rio Olympics roll around. And Pesic hopes that at 66 years old he will be working during the Olympics - only this time trying to find a way to beat the United States and the rest of the world's elite.

FIBA