Thursday April 29, 2021
Tough DBB opponents at home EM
Nowitzki draws ungrateful lots from ex-colleagues
Slovenia has the upcoming NBA megastar, France perhaps the best defender of the world’s best basketball league right now. The German basketball players have to compete against both teams in the preliminary round of the home European championship in 2022. Dirk Nowitzki assigns tough opponents to the DBB.
“Losfee” Dirk Nowitzki gave the German national basketball team an extremely difficult draw for the home European championship next year. At the tournament from September 1 to 18, 2022, the team of national coach Henrik Rödl will meet defending champions Slovenia and third place in the World Cup in group B in addition to their previously determined opponent Lithuania. Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina complete the group of six.
“It’s a difficult lot, a very good group,” said Nowitzki in an initial reaction: “We somehow always have France. That Slovenia is added and Lithuania – it’s a really difficult group. One can only hope that the home crowd pushes the boys and they make it to Berlin. “
Italy, Georgia and the Czech Republic are co-hosts for the 24-team event next year. The selection of the German Basketball Federation (DBB) denies their group duels in Cologne. Games will also be played in Milan, Tbilisi and Prague, with the best four in each group making it to the final from September 9th to 18th in Berlin.
Slovenia has an absolute top star in Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks, the 22-year-old is a contender for the award of the most valuable player of the current NBA season and is already one of the best in the world. France around Rudy Gobert from Utah Jazz – twice named best defender in the NBA – is also strong and defeated Rödl’s team at the 2019 World Cup in China. Lithuania has already won the European Championship three times, and Germany has so far achieved its only triumph in 1993.
Nowitzki is the German ambassador for EuroBasket 2022, which has been postponed by a year. In 2015 he was still there for the DBB at the preliminary round in Berlin and had said goodbye to the fans after the last game. The 42-year-old ended his career in the NBA in April 2019 after 21 seasons and 1667 playoffs in the Dallas Mavericks jersey.
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