The German basketball players will have to do without the two NBA pros Maximilian Kleber and Isaac Bonga at the home European Championships in Cologne and Berlin.
Both are not part of national coach Gordon Herbert’s 16-man extended line-up, the German Basketball Federation (DBB) announced on Tuesday. Bonga, who is looking for a club, is injured and missing due to surgery, according to the federation.
Kleber of the Dallas Mavericks said, “After two exhausting years marked by the pandemic with only short summer breaks, I will use this summer to get a break mentally and physically.” He said this is the first opportunity to do so since summer 2019. “Although I would very much like to play for the national team, I have made the difficult decision not to play the European Championship this summer,” Kleber let it be known. Leading the line-up will be NBA-bound Dennis Schröder, NBA-talent Franz Wagner and captain Robin Benzing.
The training for the European Championships (1 to 18 September) starts on 6 August in Cologne. Then there are international matches against Belgium and the Netherlands as well as the Supercup in Hamburg and two World Cup qualifiers in Sweden and against Slovenia with NBA star Luka Doncic. Coach Herbert still has to reduce his line-up from the current 16 players to twelve players.
The extended German squad for the European Championship preparation:
Robin Benzing (Fortitudo Bologna), Niels Giffey (Zalgiris Kaunas), Justus Hollatz (CB Breogán), David Krämer (Basketball Löwen Braunschweig), Leon Kratzer (Telekom Baskets Bonn), Maodo Lo (Alba Berlin), Andreas Obst (FC Bayern München), Kenneth Ogbe (EWE Baskets Oldenburg), Dennis Schröder (Free Agent), Christian Sengfelder (Brose Bamberg), Daniel Theis (Indiana Pacers), Johannes Thiemann (Alba Berlin), Johannes Voigtmann (until end of February ZSKA Moscow), Franz Wagner (Orlando Magic), Moritz Wagner (Orlando Magic), Jonas Wohlfarth-Bottermann (Hamburg Towers)
