Dennis Schröder mention his leaving we have lost it now…..
BRAUNSCHWEIG, GERMANY — Prinzen Park on Braunschweig’s east side is a blocks-long, tree-filled space with shaded pedestrian paths, but at the center is a big concrete oval where Atlanta Hawks point guard Dennis Schroder spent much of his youth.
He would finish school in the early afternoon and make his way through the city of a quarter-million people in central Germany, halfway between Berlin and Dortmund, until he reached the park. He’d stay until 10 or 11 p.m. Day after day, night after night.
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Schroder, 22, has joined Dirk Nowitzki and Detlef Schrempf as the only Germans to make dents in the NBA. Schroder is the backup point guard in Atlanta, which improved by 22 wins last season and topped the Eastern Conference regular-season standings. Schroder, in his second season, made strides, improving his three-point and free throw shooting to average 10 points and 4.1 assists while playing just shy of 20 minutes a game.
As a kid, though, he frequented the concrete of Prinzen Park, where he’d play some basketball, but mostly he’d fly around on the ramps and rails. He was a skateboard addict.
Liviu Calin, head coach of Basketball Loewen Braunschweig’s youth program, would come to Prinzen to recruit talent. He noticed Schroder’s natural athleticism when he was skateboarding, playing soccer or messing around with a basketball. He asked Schroder time and again to come play for him.
At that point, Schroder hadn’t played ball indoors.
In Germany, you just didn’t dream of becoming a basketball star. Although Europe’s second-biggest country, Germany has trailed in developing basketball talent.
It has been outpaced by France, Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain and Turkey as well as smaller countries such as Croatia, Lithuania, Serbia and Slovenia. In the history of EuroBasket (formerly the European Basketball Championship), which started in 1935 and is held every two years, Germany has won two medals — the same as Egypt, Latvia and Bulgaria. Germany’s best finish in the Olympics was seventh in 1992. Germany’s domestic league, Basketball Bundesliga, ranks eighth in Europe.
“It’s the structure in the sport,” Calin says. “They don’t have basketball in high school or university here. The TV, the media, the sports structure in Germany, it’s only soccer. It’s not a social thing for kids to dream to become like Dirk or like Dennis.”
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But Shroder had Calin, who wanted to see him develop. He had his brother, Che, and Che’s friends, five years older, as playground competition. He also had a fierce independence and an in-your-face, never-back-down approach to competition.
