German BBL 08/09 Regular Season

[rikhardur]

Giants Nördlingen vs Giessen 46ers online broadcast here now

[robbe]

Bamberg comes back from that heavy -30 midweek loss by defeating ... ALBA Berlin. 71:59 final score, Predrag Suput led all scorers with 23 points.

Second big loss for ALBA this week. They are missing Julius Jenkings badly. ALBA relies on the pick and roll a lot, and Jenkins is clearly their best player doing that. McElroy has improved in that area, but he is not quite on Jenkins' level, and he cannot do it all alone anyway. Hamann is more of a passive point guard on offense, sets up the offense very well, but doesn't make plays. Rashad Wright is just an average pick and roll player, I'm not too impressed by him.

Casey Jacobsen is a huge disappointment so far, nowhere near the player he was in 06/07 with Bamberg. Seems he has bulked up in the NBA, lost some quickness, cannot get free looks because of that when coming around the shooter screen. Now he even starts missing the open shots as well.

The problem is that none of ALBA's big men is an above average one on one scorer on Euroleague level. They rely a lot on the backcourt to create high percentage shots inside as well as open looks on the outside for everyone, and with Jenkins out, they are only effective enough when McElroy and Wright both have outstanding games. Not to speak of Jacobsen ...

Well, it's not all bad. They're doing fine in the Euroleague (currently 2-3), even if it will be difficult to reach the next round. And the BBL regular season isn't too interesting anyway. But they're certainly not on top of their game at the moment.

[Gruebler]

I think the most interesting thing yesterday was, that the huge discrepancy between the top teams of the league and the weak teams became obvious. Brose vs. ALBA was a game of good european quality and with a do or die attitude and atmosphere. One has to keep in mind, that even with the comparably poor offense ALBA showed yesterday, they'd have beaten 80% of the league's teams. The other broadcasted game Nördlingen vs. Gießen was way below first league quality. After a third of the season, i'd say that at least a quarter of the league's teams are not competitive at all. In my opinion the oversized league with many college-benchwarmer-teams is a huge liability for the German clubs playing european competitions.

Luka Pavicevic just described the German league in an interview:
"You can hardly compare the BBL with other leagues in Europe, since the other leagues (except the Polish) don't usually play with nine foreigners per team. If a league allows five or six foreigners to play, they usually have the rule, that a maximum of two non-Europeans are allowed in the team. Due to the fact that in the BBL nine Americans per team are allowed, the BBL differs greatly from the other European leagues. It is actually not a European league. It is strongly influenced by the American presence, speed, athleticism and the way basketball is played in the United States."
Source

[uhg80]

The BBL has a reputation of being a very balanced league, but this might only be true for the teams from maybe 5 to 14. The huge discrepancy between the level of play of the top 3 or 4 teams and the one of the bottom 4 should not come as a surprise and should be considered as a common thing in mostly every league. However, this might be a good argument for the reduction of the league to 14 teams. If we assume that level of play of these 14 teams stayed more or less the same, we'd get more competitiveness, rid of these weak squads, have a de facto raise of the minimum budget and therefore probably no more stories of club at the verge of financial collapse (I think the remaining teams are financially stable enough not to desperately need the ticket money of the home games fallen away). Plus, there'd be more solid german vets and promising yougsters available for less BBL teams, which could lead a rise of media interest and a reduced number of college graduates, therefore slightly changing the style that Grübler and Pavicevic described and that most german fans are not very fond of, either.
And finally, the schedule in the BBL is a terrible mess. There are so many games rescheduled or postponed or whatever, you barely can keep track. I guess this is because of arena availability, as most arenas are multifuntional arenas that host other events and teams from other sports. Nevertheless it's annoying and I already ranted on SD about this matter. A less crowded schedule might fix this as well.

[Gruebler]

Surprise surprise! There's a new team leading the German BBL after gameday 14: Telekom Baskets Bonn now is the first team to have won 10 games, as they won at Trier 66:84 Five others are trailing with 9 victories (ALBA 9:3, Frankfurt 9:4, Oldenburg 9:4, Ulm 9:5).

Despite having won against Gießen today (79:56), Bamberg still struggles to reach the playoff ranks. Ludwigsburg defeated Ulm 97:91 (OT). And finally the Skyliners made clear, that they can win against a top team of the league and even do this with a clear 84:53 blow-out against Oldenburg.

And what happened to ALBA Berlin? They lost on the road in Düsseldorf
84:81.

Oh Bremerhaven lost in Paderborn. It was the 13th loss of Doc Sakalauskas' team in a row (they only won their first). And the Doc seems to lose his nerves, as he hit one of Bremerhaven's supporters who greeted him with a drunken "What are you doing here, Go home!" after the game.

Paderborn moves away from relegation now, while Cologne gets trapped there as they lose again, 73:61 at Nördlingen.

Tübingen - Göttingen 64-65
NY Phantoms Braunschweig - Artland Dragons 75:66

[robbe]

The BBL schedule is a mess, unfortunately.

ALBA will still finish 1st without doubt. It is natural to lose some games when you're playing in Europe in midweek. BBL is not on a high level, but you can lose away games even versus mid-table teams easily. Not only physical reasons, motivation is a large part of it too. Once ALBA is not in international competition anymore [which I hope won't happen too soon], they'll probably gain stability. Injuries certainly play their part, but they're still able to field a very very decent team in the BBL, even if they're without Jenkins, Femerling, Wright, Chubb.

[each way]

So I assume the reason there is a match today is because of Alba's participation in Euroleague causing a backlog of matches?

[Booker-T]

No, the reason was that Anschutz (o2) wasn't able to provide the gym on sunday afternoon as they had promised before the season. Icehockey Team "Eisbären" was playing o2 on Sunday.

[Gruebler]

What happend in the German BBL during the last weeks?

Two coaches were fired: Simon Cote (Giessen) was substituted by Vladimir Bogojevic. On new years eve, Eisbären Bremerhaven coach Doc Sarunas Sakalauskas resigned and now his former assistant Mindozas will be headcoach until end of season. Tough job, as it becomes obvious that he will have to coach a team that will be relegated with high probability.

The league stays extremely close. The teams playing in european competitions struggle due to their double efforts. After winning in Badalona, ALBA lost at Oldenburg. Bonn lost at Braunschweig and Brose Bamberg still can't find a constant form (and a new Center after releasing Alexander Johnson) and struggles to keep a playoff spot.

Surprisingly BG74 Goettingen currently is placed first. A low budget team (approx 1,5 € total budget) from a small university city with a huge basketball tradition. Coached by John Patrick the "violets" play some kind of small ball often dubbed as "organized chaos", extremely high pressure on opponent's guards, heavily relying on 1on1 offensively. Forwards Clif Brown, Charles Lee and Chris Oliver do most of the scoring. With former 2nd division Guard Rocky Trice, the club features on of the most spectacular players of the league.

This weeks we'll only see two re-scheduled games. But both are of high importance for the playoffs, as it's the teams fighting for the last spots who will play: Skyliners Frankfurt (5th) against Ludwigsburg (7th). Brose Bamberg (9th) against Phantoms Braunschweig (8th).

The German media is extremely excited about ALBAs game against Ljubljana today. EL-Videos suddenly are featured on Germanys leading news website spiegel.de. Suddenly (especially in a week without any football games) Basketball is a major issue.

This weekend features the league's Allstar-Day at SAP Arena Mannheim. It probably won't be a sell-out crowd and the teams had to suffer from some injuries. The North (Team Nord) plays the South (Team Süd). Starters were determined by a fan voting, bench (Bank) was named by the coaches who had to keep in mind that every team has to be represented in the game.



Due to injuries, Ken Johnson is replaced by Brandon Bowman.

Edit:
The German sports website sport1.de disqualified Artland Dragons in their "team of the year" online voting due to "manipulations". The German online basketball communities acted in concert and created an extraordinary voting result for the dragons (and Dirk Nowitzki), so they won by a huge margin. Yes, people voted many times in a row. But that was not expressly prohibited and there were no technical means applied to prevent such a behaviour. Nevertheless sport1 cried "manipulation" and diqualified the winners. That's no good style.

[Gruebler]

What's up in the German BBL?

It still feels strange looking at the BBLs standings midseason. The league's standings are as close as they can probably get. The 20th gameday (of 34) just started and not less than 14 teams can dream of playing the playoffs as they are just one or two victories away from the 8th spot.

Finally a real leading trio emerged: EWE Baskets Oldenburg, ALBA Berlin and this season's big surprise BG 74 Göttingen. The latter ones playing very athletic smallball with a slight notion of streetball style. Very much relying on 1on1 and their really good and high intensity defense. It's this years Cinderella story so far as their club budget is just a bit over a million euro.

The next trio is fighting for the fourth rank and home right in the quarterfinals. Frankfurt, Bonn and Ulm. Watch out for Bonn, they might be in a minor crisis right now, but big man Bowler is coming back and if they win this Sunday at home against ALBA they can make clear that they are back.

Finally Brose Baskets ist back and the last team with more wins than losses. New PG Dan Dickau really made the team better. And C Elton Brown will probably fill the void in the paint. Their last games were impressive. Watch out for a run in the next weeks. It might start tomorrow @Ludwigsburg (live on BBL.TV).

It's completely unpredictable what will happen with the seven teams fighting for the last PO spot. Trier, Ludwigsburg, NY Phantoms Braunschweig, Paderborn Baskets, Giants Düsseldorf, Artland Dragons, Giants Nördlingen. Of course you could argue, that some of them just don't have the necessary quality for playoffs but somehow they all keep close together and the standings change every other week or so. I guess it will take some more weeks to see who really has a chance to reach the POs.

Paderborn has some financial troubles and has to release a player at the end of February.

The Artland Dragons suffer from Darius Halls injury and will probably release PG Zack Whiting who seems not to get along with the coach. The fans are furious, and start to openly request coach Leibenath's resignment. Last years cup winner clearly is the most underperforming team right now.

As usual, a lot will depend on injuries, comebacks and the last new signings. Trading deadline is end of February and you can expect quite some last minute signings. Braunschweig for example is looking for an experienced shooter who can give the young team some structure.

And last but not least, the struggle against relegation seems to get some new momentum, too. Eisbären Bremerhaven (3:16) finally got two victories and seem to start to really fight against relegation. Gießen (5:14) got a win @Düsseldorf but their technical loss more and more shows to be a huge liabiliy as they not only have to reach their competitors Cologne (6:13) and Tübingen (7:12) but will lose in any tie-braker-situation.

And there's one issue which arose after a league's meeting some weeks ago: The league does not want any more financial instability and looming insolvencies. We saw a bit of these issues this season and especially some low budget teams just don't have the economic potential to grow. So the league's chairman said that if teams don't match financial standards for the next season the league might be reduced in size. Although many fans are disappointed and angry about those economic arguments, I guess it might be a good thing to reduce the league to 14 or 16 teams with enough financial power and a real professional club structure. Why? Because only with economic certainty and the capability of signing players for more than a single season the German league would get in a state where it could grow to eye level with Italy, the Adriatic League or the BalticBL.

[Gruebler]

Gameday 24 took place this weekend and brought some surprises.

Cologne beats Cup-runner-up Telekom Baskets Bonn 87:74. Jeremy Hunt scored 30 for Cologne and Telekom Baskets really fell apart and never had a chance to win.

Due to this loss Bonn lost contact to the leading trio of the league. ALBA Berlin, MEG Göttingen and EWE Baskets remain close, as all three only lost five games so far. ALBA is back on track after an important road win against Göttingen. After the last week, a lot of commentators stated that ALBA now starts to show its real face in the league and prove that they can dominate the league at will.

Financially troubled Paderborn remains on a winning streak as they beat Frankfurt Skyliners this week end. It seems as if Paderborn will play playoffs...if they make ends meet and find the money necessary to finish the season.

And finally Brose Bamberg makes clear, that they really want to fight for a playoff spot. PG John Goldsberry is back and had a good game in the 56:75 road win in Tübingen. C Elton Brown delivered his first double-double, too, while PG Dan Dickau was sidelined. Watch out for Bamberg, they might be ranked low but will be a very tough opponent in the playoffs.

Trier and Ludwigsburg follow closely on the 9th and 10th ranking. The fight for the last PO spot stays extremely close but I wouldn't bet on any other team than Bamberg right now. Braunschweig and Nördlingen are kind of lost in the leagues no man's land: no fear of relegation, no real chance to reach the POs.

Relegation? Bremerhaven seems to be a clear candidate, despite a win against Gießen and a very good game of Jared Reiner. Cologne and Gießen are head to head again struggling against being the second team becoming relegated. Additionally Düsseldorf, Walter Tigers Tübingen and Artland Dragons have to stay watchful not to drop any further. So far they only feature two wins more than the 17th ranked team.

[BlacKOEIsle]

Is Leon Rodgers the MVP of BBL last year?
He is really superb these days ,2 straight 60+.....
And why the team he played didn't extension his contract?

[robbe]

Is Leon Rodgers the MVP of BBL last year?
He is really superb these days ,2 straight 60+.....
And why the team he played didn't extension his contract?

No. He was a good player here, but not a MVC calibre one. Averaged 13.8PPG in the regular season and 10.5PPG in the playoffs.

I think he won the MVP award in the Netherlands once.

Why they didn't extend his contract? They got a new coach who obviously had different ideas, but, as said, he wasn't a "must-keep" player here anyway. Great scorer, but flaws on the defensive end and not known as a mentally strong player/winner.

[jugoplastika]

Economy causes Alba “no” to 10m euro budget

German BBL clubs have until Sunday to submit their financial paperwork for licenses for next season. The biggest news so far has defending champions Alba Berlin saying they will not increase their budget for 2010 to 10 million euros as they had hoped.

Berlin have long talked about increasing their budget from the current estimated 7.5 million euros to 10 million euros to help better compete in the Euroleague. But with the current worldwide economic crisis still on-going, Alba manager Marco Baldi told the German tabloid daily Bild that the club does not want to risk going over their means.

“At the moment, we cannot maintain this goal,” Baldi told Bild. “We really have to see clearly what’s going on in the market. And it doesn’t look like increases.”

When asked if Alba would be stagnant with their budget, he added: “At the moment, we have to assume that.”

Baldi, in the report, also cited the situation at BC Kyiv - who had to recently release six foreign players - as something Alba desperately want to avoid, adding: “We will only spend what we can generate.”

Another big German club also admitted this week that the poor world economy would affect their planning for next season.

Deutsche Bank Skyliners do not release their budget information, but the Frankfurt team manager Gunnar Wöbke told the Frankfurter Neue Presse: “We always plan our budget conservatively. But we will plan it a bit more conservatively now.”

“It’s natural that the world economic crisis will impact the entire economy, including all professional sports clubs,” Wöbke added.

The FNP report also noted that Frankfurt’s main sponsor Deutsche Bank - one of the leading banks in Germany - has until December to announce if it will remain a partner with the club after the 2009-2010 season.

And BBL chief executive Jan Pommer said in the same FNP report that the league could be facing having fewer than 18 clubs next season if the odd side cannot cover the 1 million euro minimum budget.

“We have to remain authoritative and stick to our standards,” Pommer said. “I do not assume it, but that of course could mean that there will not be 18 teams next season.”

http://www.ballineurope.com/countries/germany/economy-causes-alba-no-to-10m-euro-budget/

[Gruebler]

@Jugoplastika. Finally the media got round to covering the impact of the financial crisis on German basketball. The idea that the league might be reduced in size has been rumored at least since Allstar Day.

There are other articles who name some clubs where the future might be uncertain. But the information is very limited:

As of now, we know about three to five clubs who were not able to meet their business plan this year. Early this season LTi Giessen 46ers were close to insolvency but somehow they seem to have managed to tackle their problems, although there seems to be high debt which might lead to problems in the future. It is rumored that Cologne 99ers work with not more than the minimal budget, just recently a leading newspaper stated that they might have troubles again. Paderborn Baskets still need 240.000 € to finish the season and they work on a month-to-month basis, insolvency still looming over them. Nördlingen has a minor budget deficit of around 80.000 € (total budget believed to be 1.1-1.3 mio. €). The biggest question mark right now seems to be Düsseldorf who are believed to have a budget deficit of 600.000 € in their first season.

As the official club budgets are not disclosed, we can't really estimate what the impacts of these deficits will be. But even if there are some small budget clubs who begin to struggle economically the bigger clubs seem to be financially stable. If - as FNP and Bild write - Frankfurt and Berlin just fear stagnation of their budgets, it's quite a luxurious situation in times of crisis.

And even the idea to decrease the league's size is something only discussed because the league is not willing to give up their "high" expectations regarding the budget and arena standards: you have to prove a 1-million-euro budget and an modern arena seating at least 3000 to get a license to play the BBL.

In Germany, we haven't seen any lay offs of players due to financial problems yet.