No sooner has Himar Ojeda answered his phone than he’s gone again. A dull hiss, ten seconds of silence, then a rustling. “Can you hear me?” Ojeda finally asks and adds: “I only had to connect the charging cable and turn on the headphones.” in which it is currently located.
While Alba’s players are on their well-deserved summer vacation these days, Ojeda has to work. And this summer even on two tracks: since the women’s team was promoted to the first Bundesliga, the 49-year-old’s job now includes putting together two teams – under very different conditions and with completely different priorities.
Ojeda expects all players to stay at Alba
At least as far as Berlin’s men’s team is concerned, the starting position at the beginning of the summer was as rare as it was comfortable: “Except for Tim Schneider, all the players had a contract for the next season,” says Himar Ojeda. A few weeks later, Schneider’s contract was extended long ago. In addition, only one player made use of his exit clause, forward Oscar da Silva, who had migrated to Barcelona. Further bloodletting is currently not foreseeable either: “I assume that all the other players will stay,” says Ojeda with determination. It is an impressive contrast to the summers of previous years, in which Alba was always unable to keep numerous top performers à la Simone Fontecchio, Niels Giffey, Martin Hermannsson or Rokas Giedraitis.
“It seems as if I have practically nothing to do for the men’s team this summer,” says Himar Ojeda with a laugh at the few Alba professionals who are willing to change. It is appearances that deceive. A look at the Alba professionals’ contracts reveals that eight of them will expire next summer – including those of figureheads such as Luke Sikma and Maodo Lo. And because Ojeda describes his working style as “proactive instead of reactive”, he is already preparing for next year. The Spaniard was recently, as usual, at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, makes as many phone calls as ever, and maintains the list of players interesting for Alba. “I scout players year after year regardless of the current need,” explains Ojeda. So that he has the right players on his list for every position as soon as it arises.
In Alba’s women’s team, the said need for new signings this summer is much greater than in the case of their male colleagues. It is due to the aforementioned promotion to the first Bundesliga. “It’s a big leap. The competition is much bigger, the quality of the players is much higher,” says Ojeda. In other words: The very successful but also very inexperienced Alba team from the previous season had to and still has to be strengthened. “We will keep the core of our team and bring in players who bring us top-flight experience into the team.” It all started with the signings of winger Nina Rosemeyer and point guard Deeshyra Thomas.
Himar Ojeda’s duties have only included recruiting female basketball players in addition to basketball players since the summer of 2019. Finding the right players for Alba “is something completely different,” says the sporting director. “It’s much harder for women to do the same job that I do for men.” The main problem is a lack of information.
While there are countless databases, statistical pools, video sequences and other types of information about the players of this world in the men’s area, this is not the case for women. An example: If you search the Internet for the Italian Gabriele Procida, who was recently signed by Alba, you will quickly find dozens of highlight videos and scouting reports on YouTube. On the other hand, there are only moving pictures of the point guard Deeshyra Thomas because the American edited them herself and put them on the Internet. “That’s why I invest a lot of work in order to get to know even more players better,” says Ojeda.
But the steps that follow the procurement of information in the recruitment process are also characterized by differences. These become particularly visible in the contract negotiations conducted by Himar Ojeda. “For men, it’s all about the big numbers; for women, every little thing counts,” he says. In Alba’s discussions with players, the salary and possible exit clauses are the decisive points. When courting players, on the other hand, it is – at least at Alba’s level – much more about the trappings. Factors like meal vouchers, a room in a players’ shared flat, and outfitter kit are all important. Quite simply because they make it much easier for Bundesliga women basketball players like Alba to live from their passion.
In women’s basketball there are usually only one-year contracts
There are also differences with regard to the duration of the contracts: Alba’s men have tended to get longer in recent years. Even four-year contracts like those of Luke Sikma, Marcus Eriksson and Malte Delow are now conceivable and feasible. “In women’s basketball, almost all women want one-year contracts,” explains Ojeda. Not least because many women basketball players outside of the wealthier WNBA and the Euroleague re-evaluate year after year whether another job is more lucrative.
For Himar Ojeda himself, the question of the lucrativeness of his own job does not arise in this work either. Despite the countless, battery-sapping phone calls, Alba’s sports director exudes great joy when he talks about his tasks. And there is also a bit of pride when Ojeda talks about the almost sensational consistency in the men’s squad.
