The German future?
[by Christophe NEY] - A lot of people are talking about the effect Dirk Nowitzki has on the performances of the German National team. Of course, such a great individuality helps them to play on a higher level, and Germany can be considered as a legit medal favorite on every tournament they play. But also a lot of people think, that with the retirement of Dirk, Germany will be back somewhere in the lower European level
[by Christophe NEY] - A lot of people are talking about the effect Dirk Nowitzki has on the performances of the German National team. Of course, such a great individuality helps them to play on a higher level, and Germany can be considered as a legit medal favorite on every tournament they play. But also a lot of people think, that with the retirement of Dirk, Germany will be back somewhere in the lower European level. And as there is no Nowitzki every ten years in Germany, the federation and the Bundesliga have to develop young players and offer good possibilities to these youngsters to play and gain some experience.
When I was thinking about the subject of this posting, I saw that great interview with the German National Team and Brose Baskets Bamberg coach Dirk Bauermann speaking about the same subject. Bauermann was talking about the actual situation in Germany where you can virtually play with 10 Americans at the moment which gives very little chance to young German prospects to gain minutes in the Bundesliga. He would be in favor of 6+6 system where must have at least 6 German players on your roster to start the game.
To have more opportunities for the young players, the NBBL has been created in Germany which is Under-19 league with 24 teams on national basis. A lot of teams are farm teams of the professional BBL clubs, but there are also some independent teams like the Basketball school Urpsring or Bramfelder SV from Hamburg. This league is great success in its first year of existence as a lot of young players can play on high level and there is a very good response from the fans so that you could have up to 1000 spectators for Playoffs games. The 4 best teams qualify for a Final Four tournament which will be held in May in Paderborn. This popular success explains Bauermann with the fact, that there are "Germans" on the court, the people can see local kids, players they know. For the moment, there is no new Nowitzki showing off in the NBBL but in my opinion, this league will help to develop young players in order to get spots in the pro teams and in the future become important players for the National team.
Bauermann was also explaining that it is a "shame" that he can not give more minutes to his young players that are Sajmen Hauer and Tim Ohlbrecht. The last one had an injury back in October 2007 and only played his first official games this week. According to Bauermann, Ohlbrecht should have got "important" minutes with Bamberg already this season, but he precised that "important" minutes for such a young player would be around 10-12 minutes per game.
As the NBBL playoffs are going on, and they can be followed closely on the europeanprospects.com blog, I will post my final conclusion about that league after having attended the Final Four tournament in May. It would be great having at the end of the season a sort of European tournament where the different youth champions would play each other. Of course, there is the Euroleague Junior Tournament but there is no presence from countries like Germany or France. Unfortunately.