Poland 2009 - Who needs Nowitzki?

[by Kris SANTIAGO] - Jak sie masz! Yes, I know, it might be exaggerating by going with such a provocative title, but who would have thought, that Germany would be making it to the second stage of the European Championships in Poland this year?

It was not too long ago, when I was watching games of Robin Benzing here in my region where he was playing in a local youth team for a place in the German youth-championships. He did well in the games that I was able to follow, but I never thought to see him climbing up the ladder in German hoops in such a short time. Back then, he was supposed to go to the U.S. to spend some time in a college to earn his strides while playing in the tough NCAA. Now he goes against the likes of Kalampokis, Perperoglou or Zisis without witnessing any fear or respect in his actions.
He signed already for coach Mike Taylor in Ulm who should be more than happy to have such a rising talent on his squad, as I think that Robin or/and his agent (I don't even think that he has one) received a lot of calls during the tournament from interested teams around Europe.

Another youngster that I particularly like is Elias Harris of BIS Speyer. You never heard of Speyer? It's a small town in the beautiful Rhineland-Palatine and hosts a third-division amateur-team for which Harris played for several years. I remember watching him playing against some buddies of mine who were back then playing for Eintracht Frankfurt (Also an amateur-team associated with the famous football-team that is currently in the top five of the German Bundesliga), and he really showed a lot of potential, but I thought he won't be moving up to play in a better league as most players decide against the slim chance of becoming a pro player and instead focus on their studies. Actually, he is focusing on both as he is going to suit up for Gonzaga in the NCAA. Now, Harris has all the tools of becoming a tremendous player on the collegiate level altogether with Kelly Olynyk and Mangisto Arop from Canada who are also freshmen-Bulldogs like Elias and all three could be having an immediate impact on the Bulldogs’ success in the upcoming season.

Finally, Heiko Schaffartzik lived up to most German basketball-fans' expectations and is quite comfortable in his role as back-up point-guard and is even beating out Steffen Hamann in minutes on the court, as Hamann struggled in most of the games and is not reliable anymore on the 1.
Schaffartzik, who once had been released by his former-team Giessen due to a positive drug-test (Marijuana) overcame his troubled past and is in the driver's seat now and delivers when needed either by passing or more possibly through scoring for the Germans.

I'm also impressed by bloody-young Tibor Pleiss , who is growing into a skilled center, while I still think, that Tim Ohlbrecht did not reach the peak of his potential but with a break-out year in Bonn, he might be reaching it soon.

With all that said the future as it was projected before the European Championships by many might not be looking so dark after all. Even if the team fails to reach the quarter-finals, the chance of getting a wild-card is there and I wonder how Dirk Nowitzki is going to fit into the system of Coach Bauermann if he decides to join the team back in the future, as I really enjoyed the more balanced scoring output by the current team than a the past teams that were looking only to Dirk to do the scoring and to do all the necessary work on and off the court for Germany. Maybe, it's time of a complete change, without the veterans to give the younger ones a chance to shine in bigger competitions as well.

I'm out like dark clouds over German basketball