A girl plays with the ball on the pitch at the Mercedes-Benz Arena. She sports the Lakers jersey and a name on the back of her that gives her away. Next to her, without losing sight of her, she observes Dennis Schroder, the star of the German national team, who is threatening Spain today and who still does not have a team for next season. It is strange that a talent like his has not found accommodation at this point, but the NBA is like that. The German will have no problems if he continues to look like he has done so far in the tournament. The beacon of a Germany that will seek the final in a scenario that brings back bad memories. At the 2015 Eurobasket, Schroder had a free kick that would have eliminated Spain. He, who has a success above 90 percent, missed the launch and the rest is history. The team hung the gold and Schroder brooded over a defeat that he hopes to avenge today. The idol of the fans, his best player in this tournament, had a difficult childhood. Born to a German father and a Gambian mother, he suffered from racial problems at school and spent hours on his skateboard to escape. Sport to which he dedicated most of his time until basketball and a promise crossed his path. The basket was already one of his hobbies, but it was not until the death of his father, when Dennis was still a teenager, when he turned to this sport. He had promised her that he would take care of his family and basketball was the best way to do it. In fact, his father had been the only one who had really supported him in his early years as a player and his anger at going professional contained part of the love he felt for him. After several seasons standing out in the teams of his city –where he coincided with Daniel Theis, another of the talents of this renewed Germany–, he made the leap to the NBA. There, his characteristic blond lock (which he grew as a child to distinguish himself from the others) has become famous, but he has not managed to settle in any team. A problem that he wants to solve by standing on the podium for the first time with his country and signing a long-term contract in the coming weeks. For this he will have the help, in addition to the aforementioned Theis, from Franz Wagner, the Magic player who flirted with the NBA’s best rookie award in 2022.
