MIES (Switzerland) - There is a funny thing about Baskets Bonn's rise to the top of the FIBA 3x3 World Tour this season. A lot of what now makes them so good was already there when the results were still pretty ugly.
Bonn opened their World Tour campaign with two losses in Zadar, followed that with a 1-2 showing in Shanghai and sat at 1-4 through their first five games. If you only looked at the standings, they looked like a talented young team still trying to figure things out. Since then they have gone 12-2, made a deep run in Vienna, won their first ever World Tour title in Amsterdam and followed that up with another title in Lausanne.
When I started digging through every Bonn game from 2026, I expected the numbers to show me a team that had reinvented itself somewhere along the way. They did not. What I found was a team that was already creating extra shots, already attacking the offensive glass and already showing the athletic tools that now make their defense so uncomfortable. The real development has been in how all of those things fit together, and in how efficiently Bonn are now cashing in on the type of game they create.
I kept coming back to one thing in particular: Bonn get more shots than you do.
More shots than you
When I talk about the possession battle in 3x3, I am usually interested in the most tangible outcome first. Did you actually get a shot at the basket? Add together the one-point and two-point attempts and compare them to the opponent. Among the top 15 teams in the 2026 World Tour standings through Lausanne, Bonn rank second in shot-attempt differential. They take 1.9 more shots per game than their opponents.
In a ten-minute game, finding almost two extra scoring chances every time on the court is a serious advantage. Bonn get there in a few different ways. They are one of the better offensive rebounding teams in that top-15 group, they force mistakes and they are excellent at turning messy possessions into another go at it. Miss? Fine. Grab it and do it again. Get a hand on a pass? Great, that might be a possession the other team never gets to finish. Over ten minutes, those small wins become a pretty annoying math problem.
The effect is visible at the other end too. Teams take 1.3 fewer shots against Bonn than they normally do, the second strongest suppression in the group, and opponents commit almost one additional turnover per game compared to their own season average. Nobody in the top-15 pushes opponent turnovers further away from their normal level.
What I like most about the shot-volume number is that it does not disappear when Bonn loses. It actually gets larger. Their average shot advantage is +1.46 in wins and +2.83 in losses. That sounds backwards until you remember what a good offensive rebounding team does when it misses. More misses can mean more chances to grab the ball and shoot again. The attempt count keeps rising, even if the scoreboard does not.
That makes the overall equation very simple. Creating extra shots is Bonn's constant. Efficiency decides what those extra shots are worth.
Let's make it a battle of ones
Here is where Bonn become really interesting. They do not shoot the two particularly well. Among those top 15 teams, Bonn rank 12th in two-point percentage at 23.2%. In 3x3 that can be a pretty serious problem. If I keep getting two points from my good possessions while you get one, we do not need an analytics department to work out where that game is headed.
Bonn's answer is to change the terms. If we are not going to be the best team in a shootout from behind the arc, why have one? Create more attempts, make more of the game happen around the rim, and try to force the opponent into the same one-point fight. In other words: let us make this a battle of ones.
The defensive side of Bonn's identity follows the same logic. Watch them guard both on-ball and off-ball screening actions and their preference is clear: they want to go over. Stay attached to the shooter, avoid conceding the comfortable two and make the offense find something else.
Of course, saying you want to get over every screen is a lot easier than actually doing it. Screens land. Good offenses make the right read. Sometimes you are simply half a step late. This is where I think Bonn's athleticism is the real story. Even when they do not get over cleanly, you have not necessarily solved anything. They have enough mobility to switch crisply, enough length to recover, and enough athleticism to contest a look that seemed semi-open when the shooter gathered the ball.
The block numbers give us one measurable glimpse of it. Bonn have 27 blocks through 19 World Tour games, the highest total in the competition through Lausanne. Their 1.42 blocks per game rank second among the top 15, behind only Miami. Blocks obviously do not count every late contest, but it indicates the ability to contest shots at a high rate.
The broader numbers fit the eye test too. Opponents take fewer total shots against Bonn than they normally do, their two-point volume drops by roughly half an attempt per game, and opponents turn the ball over more often than their own season baseline. The improvement from the start of the year is even more dramatic. Bonn's opponents shot 44.6 percent from two over the first five World Tour games. Since then they are at 23.7 percent.
I am not going to pretend the screen coverage alone magically creates that percentage. Basketball does not work like that, and shooting numbers move around. But the direction makes sense. Bonn try to remove the comfortable two, and when the first coverage is beaten they have the athletes to keep solving the possession. If that eventually convinces you to put the ball on the floor and head inside, then congratulations. You have arrived at the game Bonn wanted to play in the first place.
Giessmann
Making it a battle of ones looks a lot better when Fabian Giessmann is on your side. Among World Tour players with at least ten games this season, Giessmann leads the field in one-point attempts per game. Nobody with meaningful World Tour minutes is getting more looks from inside the arc. He also leads in scoring and dunks, ranks second in blocks and sits among the leaders in offensive rebounding. If Bonn are going to drag you toward the paint for ten minutes, they have the guy I would probably pick first to play that game.
Consider this: Giessmann did not play in Zadar. Bonn shot just 41.7 percent from one at that first stop. He returned in Shanghai and the team immediately climbed to 60.9 percent. From Vienna onward, Bonn have converted even better; 67.3 percent.
Fabian is not suddenly a much better finisher than last season. His one-point percentage is actually a little lower, 68 percent compared to 71 percent in 2025. The real development is that Bonn are getting more of him. His one-point attempts have increased from 7.2 to 8.4 per game, his offensive rebounds have almost doubled from 0.83 to 1.59, his dunks have gone from 1.08 to 1.65, his turnovers have dropped and his two-point shooting has improved.
And that last one is the annoying part for opponents. Giessmann is not some old-school post player you can solve by backing off and living with the jumper. He is taking well over 3 shots per game from the land of plenty and knocking them down at around 32 percent. Among a group of high-level post players including Dianliang Zhang, Cameron Forte, Aurelijus Pukelis, Nenad Nerandzic and Delgernyam Davaasambuu, Giessmann takes the most twos and makes the most twos per game.
And because I enjoy weird statistical comparisons: Giessmann is making 1.12 twos per game this season. Karlis Lasmanis is also making 1.12. So the guy who is taking more one-point attempts than anybody on the World Tour is also making twos at the same per-game rate as Lasmanis. Good luck deciding which part of that you are supposed to take away.
All of that is a much scarier development than a temporary hot shooting stretch. He was already efficient. Now he is imposing himself on more possessions and affecting more parts of the game. In Amsterdam he gave us 50 points. Lausanne he went for 51. Back-to-back 50-point World Tour events is just silly.
The Teammates
Giessmann is the obvious headline, but the rest of Bonn’s casts play their roles perfectly to make it all work.
Agyeman’s scoring is down from last season, and his shooting numbers have dipped. If you stop there, it looks like regression. I think he has become considerably more useful.
His rebounding has tremendously improved, while his key assists have doubled to almost 2 per. He is doing more connecting and creating on offense, but the part I care about most is harder to find in the spreadsheet. Denzel is a superb on-ball defender, and there is a tenacity and joy in the way he approaches his assignments.
Sidi Beikame is probably the guy you notice least when Bonn are rolling, which in his case might be the biggest compliment I can give him. He’s efficient, barely turns the ball over and more importantly, has a combination that is incredibly useful in this system: real length and size, with elite mobility. He can switch, recover, cover ground, contest and rebound as well as anyone in the league. He can solve problems without asking the game to revolve around him.
Then there is Milos Jovanovic, the adult in the room. Last season with Hangzhou he carried much more scoring responsibility. With Bonn his scoring has dipped, while his key assists have climbed.
That looks a lot like a veteran understanding what the roster around him needs. Less hunting his own offense, more organizing, connecting and calming things down when all that youth and athleticism starts flying around. Giessmann can dominate, Denzel can pressure, Sidi can fill the gaps. Jovanovic gives the group a little structure.
Efficiency decides it
For all the talk about athleticism, defense and extra shots, this is where the whole thing becomes simple. Bonn are going to generate volume. The result usually depends on what happens with it.
In Bonn wins, they shoot 70.3 percent from one. In losses, that falls all the way to 51.6 percent. Quite telling.
The second way to break Bonn's preferred equation? Hit your twos. Opponents shoot just 23.1 percent from two in Bonn wins. In their losses that number jumps to 38.5 percent.
That is why I keep coming back to the same summary. Bonn consistently win the battle for volume. Efficiency decides whether that volume becomes dominance.
What ascension looks like
The most interesting thing about Bonn is not that they suddenly became good. It is that the outline of this team was visible before the results arrived. They were already creating extra shots while going 1-4. They already had the athletes. They were already trying to steer games away from twos and into something far more physical.
Baskets Bonn have figured out what kind of 3x3 basketball suits them. They do not shoot the two particularly well. Fine. They will try to take yours away too. They will chase over on-ball screens, chase over off-ball screens, switch when they have to, recover with their athleticism, win loose balls, create extra shots and keep making you solve one problem after another.
Eventually, they want to drag the game toward the rim, create more chances there than you have and trust that their efficiency will win out. Standing in the middle of that equation is the biggest problem on the floor.
You want to make it a battle of ones? Perfect. Baskets Bonn brought Fabian Giessmann.
Stay Connected
Follow all the latest action from the FIBA 3x3 World Tour throughout the 2026 season by visiting the official World Tour website, where you can find the latest news, team standings, player statistics and everything you need to follow the Race to the Final. Fans can also keep track of the Event Calendar and the latest FIBA 3x3 Individual and Federation Rankings as teams and players continue their push toward the season finale.
Want to learn more about 3x3 basketball? Explore the official FIBA 3x3 Rules to understand the unique fast-paced format of the game, or discover the FIBA 3x3 Competition Structure to see how the discipline’s global pathway connects grassroots events, professional tours and world-class international competitions.
FIBA