By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Despite the failure of Germany to qualify to Eurobasket’s second round, the moving standing ovation that Dirk Nowitzki got at Berlin covered everything else. Still, the German national team seems to be on turmoil.
After losing to Italy the crucial game before the do or die contest with Spain, Dirk Nowitzki expressed his dissatisfaction for young talented forward Daniel Theis not being with the national team. As he said: “Theis plays in (his club) Bamberg almost 30 minutes, which is of course a bit of a joke, because he can’t play here…”
Because of Nowitzki’s status, the German league already started an inquiry after the demand of the federation, in order to clarify if Theis could should been available to the national team and his team, Brose Baskets Bamberg, the current champs didn’t want to let him play. However his agent and former teammate of Nowitzki in the German national team, Ademola Okulaja spoke about his client who had a shoulder injury at the start of the summer: “I believe that Dirk was simply not informed by his environment properly”.
Add to this issue, one more episode. Even if Dennis Schroder – arguably to most important player of Germany right now – apologized on facebook, he criticized publicly the decisions of coach Flemming during the game against Italy. Eurobasket 2015 should have been a new start for Germany, but it’s clearly not the start that the federation would like…