Basketball influencer For Henrik Dettmann memories surfaced after the World Cup basketball final held on Sunday.
The Finnish-Canadian who led Germany to its first world championship in the sport Gordon Herbert sat after the world championship alone to process the great achievement. 21 years ago, Dettmann coached Germany to the World Cup bronze medal.
– It was exactly the same feeling 21 years ago. When the team left to celebrate, I had to leave to clear my mind. However, this was ultimately a victory for the Germans, Dettmann commented to Urheilu on Monday.
– It was a wonderful trick. A brilliantly coached team. He rose to his own sphere as a coach.
64-year-old Herbert came to Finland to play in the 1980s and later moved to coaching. Herbert has extensive coaching experience and has worked at club level in Germany, Greece, France and Russia, among others.
A year ago, under his leadership, Germany reached the EC bronze.
Demanding and gentle
Dettmann describes Herbert, whom he knows well, as a coach with an extremely hard work ethic.
– He dares to be demanding, but also gentle when he has to be.
Coaching at club level in Germany Daniel Jansson is impressed by how well Herbert gets his thesis bought by the brightest superstars. Germany’s leading player is 29 years old Dennis Schroeder.
– He (Herbert) is good at such things. Germany would certainly have had the opportunity to go far even without Gordon, but with his help it was possible to reach the absolute top.
Herbert has Finnish citizenship and also lives part of the year in Finland.
– We consider him a Finnish coach. He has played a large part of his career in Finland, he has coached here and he has Finnish children. We try to absorb all the know-how he has into Finnish basketball, says Dettmann.
The sleeping giant
Finn Jansson is currently the head coach of Tübingen, which has been promoted to the Bundesliga. He has been coaching in Germany for about a decade and has seen the country’s basketball grow.
Jansson reminds that Germany has long had masses of players and the potential to be one of the strongest basketball countries.
Jansson has either managed to coach or face several players who played in the World Cup gold team. He says Germany previously underperformed in junior basketball compared to the country’s potential.
– It has been such a sleeping giant when you look at the kind of good young players that have grown up here. There is sportsmanship. There is a size for every age group.
A 22-year-old superstar playing for the NBA club Orlando Magic Franz Wagner has left a special impression on Jansson. A few years ago, Wagner played in the German Alba Berlin junior team, when he became known to Jansson as a player.
– He played against us in the under-18 league and scored more than 30 points. I said after the match that there is the NBA’s next superstar, Jansson recalls.
Fierce competition and a remarkable role model
Herbert stated many times during the games that the German Bundesliga, the main league, has created the basis for the loss of the national team. Four players from the German champion team played in the country’s top league last season.
Jansson and Dettmann consider the Bundesliga to be of a really tough standard. Having already taught his career Petteri Koponen played in that series.
– The competition is extremely tough, which breeds tough players. All players are more or less from the Bundesliga, from which they have reached the NBA or the Euroleague.
– If you make a strong mark in the Bundesliga, it opens up more opportunities for even tougher fields, Jansson sums up the level of the series.
Dettmann reminds that Germany’s success is all about long-term work. Germany won EC gold in 1993 and WC bronze in 2002.
Germany’s best basketball player of all time was about to achieve the bronze medal in question, Dirk Nowitzki. The player legend, who ranks sixth in the NBA’s all-time scoring record, got to celebrate the NBA championship in 2011.
He has been a role model for many of Germany’s current top players.
– They have always been able to build on previous success. If you look at this team, the best players have been ten years old when Nowitzki and others were winning World Cup bronze. That gives young players an incentive to move forward, says Dettmann.
The country of 82 million people has a mass from which to draw top players.
– There are tremendous resources there. There is always an interaction between the league and the national team. The biggest interaction is between the league and local operators, says Dettmann.