Chasing the Olympic dream before my Euroleague debut
Fresh off our ULEB cup season, I am honored to have been asked to give everyone who is interested a little bit of an insight to what goes on behind the scenes of not only a club but also a national team. This summer is one of the most exciting ones of my life because not only do I still have the chance to become an Olympic games participant with the German national team, but I will also start into my first Euroleague season personally and with my team Joventut Badalona who is looking to leave our mark on the Euroleague and Spanish ACB after the most successful season for the club in many years. Even though we will have a completely new team and coach we are looking forward to picking up where we left off and being a contender in the Euroleague.
This year in particular will be electrifying and new for me since I have played the FIBA cup, the ULEB cup and will now for the first time be a part of the Euroleague. In a year where the Final Four will be played not only in my home country, but in the brand new O2 arena which is located in my home town of Berlin. Even though we are a young team which has yet to be fully formed, I believe with an aggressive style of basketball which we have been playing in the past year we can be a contender to play in the Final Four and in that I could fulfill my dream of playing in the Euroleague in front of my friends and family.
But all that is still far in the future for me and my teammates on the German national team, we just got done with training camp in Mallorca where practice might have been the hardest in years but is what we need to compete for a spot in the Olympics. Not only has our star Dirk Nowitzki been with us for the first time in a camp setting, but everybody came prepared since the turnaround from the season has been rather short for everyone. For most Germans the beautiful Spanish island is more of a vacation destination but for us it has become a place of work and team bonding, every year we have a few newcomers who make these camps a little more bearable for the rest of us, one year for example the performance of “Take Me Home Country Roads” could have easily been mistaken for a bad performance on American idol in other years there are small dares that catch everyone’s attention and turn a week of hard work into a fun time with the guys. At the end of the week the team always ends up a lot closer and a lot more ready to take on the schedule that is ahead of us. Our biggest weapon for years now has been team unity and the love of the game, no matter how long a tournament is or how far we are away from home problems within the team have never surfaced.
I have been with the national team for some time now and even though I was a young prospect when I first started out I finally became a part of the team. Last year I was able to become part of the rotation and was able to contribute to a good team effort that ended in us finishing at a spot that allows us to play the qualifying tournament in Athens this summer. The last year in Spain has been great for my confidence and I gained more experience at the top European level. It all started with a good Eurobasket for me and becoming part of a team that revolves around the best player at my position in the world, Dirk Nowitzki, also learning from players who have been here for a long time like Patrick Femerling or Ademola Okulaja. It continued by playing with the best one on one player in Europe, Rudy Fernandez, and winning not only the ULEB cup but also the Spanish Copa del Rey. In all the past year has made me a better player with more confidence and an even bigger hunger to win, once you have won your first big title like we did this year with Joventut it becomes a thirst that is hard to quench.
So this year it is much easier to get ready for the summer and the season because you already know the way it feels to win it all and in the hours of hard work on and off the court, pushing through has become less of a challenge because the goal is always in the back of your mind. Hard work has become the most important factor at the European top levels, not only do you have the best players outside of the NBA in the ACB and Euroleague, but as many games this past summer showed, maybe the team basketball here can be superior to US teams who have struggled here not only on a national but also club level over the past few years. The work that goes into the making of European teams is exceptional and is not only of importance during the season, but especially during the off season and in my opinion that is the reason why European basketball is so good nowadays, because the top players work hard all year long to become even better in order to compete with the best all over the world.
All in all it will be great to see so many good teams compete during the pre-Olympics to fulfill their dreams of being part of the greatest event in Sports which without a doubt has to be the Olympics.
So come back when I talk about the excitement of the group stage. I hope to be able talk about the German national team in the quarterfinals and the having the opportunity to take on the teams who are still standing in the way of my own Olympic dream!
DATE:
Friday, July 11, 2008