By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
When he was a teen, Tim Ohlbrecht was the talk of German and European basketball. A big man who could also shoot reminded everyone of Dirk Nowitzki and that was the problem haunting him. He had to measure up with one of the bests of all time.
To be honest, he just didn’t as a member of Bayer Giants Leverkusen, Brose Baskets, Telekom Baskets Bonn and Skyliners Frankfurt. The fact that German powerhouse Brose Baskets decided to stop investing on him when he was just 21 years old and after his first – and only – Euroleague season was a red flag.
So, Ohlbrecht, despite being undrafted by the NBA, decided to take his chances this season in the NBADL after his career in Germany seemed at best stuck in mediocrity. As a member of Rio Grande Valley Vipers he averaged 13,4 points, 7,4 rebounds and 1,6 blocks in 32 games and the pay off was a contract with the Houston Rockets till the end of the season, which has also a team option for two more years.
It’s a shocking turn of events, specially if you consider the numbers Ohlbrecht produced last summer in the Eurobasket qualifiers where the 25 years old center had just 5.4 points and 4.3 rebounds in 14.7 minutes per game as a member of the German national team. However, he has now the biggest chance of his career to shine in the biggest basketball stage of the world.