On a saturday morning in mid July, basketball freaks in Germany could expect one or two basketball rumours to be surfacing online about a player heading to a Beko BBL, Pro A or Pro B team, but generally it’s too early for any team to give a press release as those tend to surface later in the afternoon. In the last 24 hours, there had been some basketball rumours being talked about like ex Beko BBL player Filiberto Rivera who has been out of Europe since 2011 and been playing in the Americas the last years or Kyon Anderson from TCU who was linked to medi Bayreuth, but the most surprising news of the early weekend and something that became reality was that a young man by the name of Makai Mason (185-G) had suddenly popped into the minds of basketball fanatics in Germany, but did anyone know him? At first glance, the name doesn’t really sound German and at second glance why would the German basketball federation announce a press release with his name? Apparently nobody really knew that he had ties to Germany and he came out of the wood work and notified the German basketball federation that he had a German passport and asked may I play for Germany? After his hello, the German basketball federation invited him to a training camp on July 21st in Wurzburg where he will meet possible new teammates for this summer. The German basketball federation had to react as they had some cancellations as Anton Gavel, Lucca Staiger and Konstantin Klein all withdrew from competiting this summer.
German national team
Nino Garris: Pascal Roller Could Read A Play And Knew Things On The Court Before They Happened
Nino Garris is a 32 year old 200cm forward that is playing in the German Regionaliga for TV Salzkotten. He is a very athletic player with a lot of European experience(Euroleague, Uleb Cup,), great competitor, can defend very hard and he´ll gets rebounds in a crowd because he´s tough.
A complete team player, who plays smart and hard. He started his basketball career with Paderborn in 1996. He then played one season for TuS Lichterfelde before moving up to Alba Berlin in 1999 where he played until 2005. With Alba Berlin, he played a total of 132 Beko BBL games and 38 Euroleague games. He was German champion four times and cup winner twice with Alba Berlin. He then played for the Deutsche Bank Skyliners from 2005-2008 where he had to fight with injury woes. He played a total of only 52 Beko BBL games and seven ULEB cup games. He finished his Beko BBL career with his hometown team Paderborn Baskets in 2008-2009. He spoke to German Hoops about the Pascal Roller farewell game January 28th.
It has been a while since you last played in the Beko BBL. Do you miss it?
I wouldn´t really say that I miss it. It was a nice time in my life, but life goes on and I have a new chapter in it now.
How is it playing in the German Regionaliga with TV Salzkotten. Do young opponents sometimes ask you for basketball advice?
After I retired from the Beko BBL in 2009, I took about 1.5 years to see what I would do. I also didn´t play to much active sport, so I gained about 20 kilos and was having back pain. But after a while it was clear that I could never stay fully away from basketball, because I love it too much. I then joined TV Salzkotten which keeps me fit. Here and there people will ask me what is was like as a player, but I really dont get asked so much.
Introducing: The German National Team 2009
After 10 years of constantly playing for Germany Dirk Nowitzki won’t be a part of the national team this summer.
No one in Germany is complaining about that because Dirk was always willing to spend his summers playing with old friends instead of just lying on the beach and be lazy during the off-season. If one just thinks about the long, exhausting NBA season with 80-100 games Dirk has to play between November and May/June and you see that hardly any other NBA player is playing for his national team each and every summer on can’t praise Dirk’s effort high enough.
Nowitzki even turned 31 this summer and you don’t need to be a medical scientist to realise that his body needs the summers now to regenerate more than ever.
The Dallas Maverick also had planned to marry his fiancé this summer, but as we all know thanks to the gossip press this issue has sorted itself out.
So Dirk really intended to play the European championship this summer, but Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban refused to let him play. Cuban allowed Dirk to follow his big dream of playing the Olympics for many years. Now that he has been there last year, Cuban reminded Nowitzki of a promise he gave to sit out the next summer – and Dirk accepted that.
No one knows if Nowitzki will come back next summer or if he has already played his last game for the national team.
Many people saw in Germany a one-man-team. “If Nowitzki would not play for them, they would not even deserve to be in the tournament”, thought many fans and observers during the last few years.
This summer we will see how competitive the german national team can be without Dirk.
German Hoops 