With his gala performance in the World Cup semi-final against the USA at the latest, world champion Andreas Obst has played himself into the global basketball spotlight. The NBA is nevertheless not his primary career goal.
Obst is not looking at the NBA as a priority or even aiming for a move to the strongest league in the world. The 27-year-old national player in the service of Bayern Munich underlined this on Sunday evening in the BR programme “Blickpunkt Sport”. “Of course it’s a dream for every basketball player. But it never played that role for me,” said the guard. Rather, he had “always wanted to play at the European top level”. Obst: “The Euroleague was always the main goal for me. NBA is not what I’m talking about right now. “
Obst had contributed 24 points in the mesmerising 113-111 win over the USA in the World Cup semi-finals and promoted himself with his performance. The three-point specialist has a contract with the Munich team until 2026. Managing director Marko Pesic joked to BR that they could talk about the NBA issue again in four or five years.
Pesic: Ibaka “absolutely” wanted to play with fruit
Obst was part of the starting line-up of the DBB team around captain Dennis Schröder in the surprising title win in Asia. “You get to see every day what kind of waves we made. It’s very nice right now,” said Obst, who will start the new BBL season with Bayern on 29 September with a home game against Syntainics MBC and kick off in the Euroleague on 5 October against German rivals Alba Berlin.
Even without a move to the USA, there will be some NBA feelings for Bayern’s professionals in the upcoming season. Former champion Serge Ibaka recently switched to the Isar. “He really wanted to play with Andi,” Pesic said with a laugh about the 33-year-old big man, who was European champion with Spain in 2011 and won the title with the Toronto Raptors in 2018/19.
In Munich, Ibaka will not only meet a world champion. Besides Obst, former NBA pro Isaac Bonga and Niels Giffey are also in the FC Bayern squad.
