Dennis Schröder is too valuable for the German national basketball team. The German Basketball Federation (DBB) and Schröder’s management announced on Friday that the 27-year-old player will neither take part in the upcoming Olympic qualification in Split nor, if successful, in the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Schröder has played in America since 2013; in Atlanta, in Oklahoma and last season for the Los Angeles Lakers, the champions. He joined the national team on Monday so that he could lead them to Tokyo. “The enormous insurance requirements”, writes the DBB, cannot be met and prevented Schröder’s involvement.
The association usually takes out insurance for its national players, which guarantees them a payment equivalent to what their club pays in the event of injury or failure. The market value of Schröder, estimated at around twenty million dollars annually, was heard from the association, could not be realized in the current tense situation on the insurance market.
The premium should be up to almost 400,000 euros – if insurance had been found. This was made more difficult by the fact that Schröder’s contract with the Lakers has expired and the NBA clubs are only allowed to sign players without a contract like Schröder from August.
According to media reports, he rejected a four-year contract extension in Los Angeles in March, which should be remunerated with 84 million dollars. “I very much regret that the team in Split has to get along without me and that I cannot support them,” quotes DBB Schröder: “I am convinced that the boys will still make it to the Olympics, and I am already looking to EuroBasket 2022 in Germany.”
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