Two years ago, Dennis Schröder played poker and got nothing. Now the German NBA player decides for Toronto within an hour. The payment is again in better spheres than last.
The carousel really got going on the first day. This can be read from the sum of the new contracts negotiated with a total of more than one billion dollars. And the level of awareness of the NBA professionals involved. You can understand the rush. If you don’t hurry in such phases of the year, you can’t inherit much on the marketplace of the so-called “free agents”, a limited time window shortly after the end of the season and the big talent hoopla called Draft.
This applies to the 30 clubs in the league as well as to ambitious basketball players. The captain of the German national team experienced two years ago how risky it can be to play poker too calmly at moments like this. There he sat empty-handed at the end of the summer and could be happy that the Boston Celtics signed him for a “small” salary.
“We’ll have to wait and see what happens”
Since then, Dennis Schröder has recommended himself to the best of his ability for a better-paying job. Most recently in a second guest appearance with the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he – also thanks to his performances – reached the semifinals. However, the 29-year-old had a bad chance of extending his contract in LA. Because the regulations of the general collective agreement make it difficult for teams to retain players at the lower end of the wage scale with expired one-year contracts in the long term and to pay them much more attractively.
The man from Braunschweig knew that after stints in Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, Boston and Houston he would have to be prepared to move to another city. “I gave everything,” he said recently about the constellation and sounded calm as usual. “We’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
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On Friday evening it was clear what that was: Schröder and his agent had not negotiated for long, but preferred to strike quickly when the Toronto Raptors made their offer. The risk that the Canadians might sign someone else as a new playmaker and he would be outmaneuvered again, Schröder obviously classified as too great. With a total of 26 million dollars (equivalent to 23.8 million euros) for the next two seasons, the payment is again in the sphere in which it was previously classified.
Far removed from the rain of money that rains down on the stars, such as the equivalent of 38.5 million euros per season for point guard Fred VanVleet, who switched from the Raptors to the Houston Rockets. And who in this way made room for Schröder. But at the same time significantly better than the 2.4 million euros that he had last earned in Los Angeles.
Signature without long dalliance
American media reports gave an indication of how concerned his agent was. Just an hour after VanVleet sealed the Raptors vacancy with his signature in Texas, Schröder gave the Canadians the okay. He will once again pursue his ultimate goal at Lake Ontario: to start as a playmaker on a playoff-sized NBA team. Schröder’s most important advocate is the new head coach Darko Rajaković, who had already seen him in Oklahoma City when he was there as an assistant coach.
The Raptors, who as the 2019 champions of the year sparked a tremendous enthusiasm for basketball in the giant country for the first time since joining the league in 1995 but have since slipped back to mediocrity, will be without departed All-Star VanVleet. Jakob Pöltl cannot make up for the deficit when it comes to points and assists. The Austrian, who according to experts is one of the top ten centers in the league, signed on Friday without much fiddling for four years and the equivalent of 18.3 million euros per season in Toronto.
© Instagram with caption (Captions)
Schröder, who often and happily provides insights into his life and his riches on YouTube and Instagram and even posts such mishaps as an erroneous night-time arrest by the police on the Internet, initially only commented on the change with a short Twitter message. On the detailed version, like the one from his visit to the sports doctor Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt in Munich a few days ago, who treated him for chronic tendon irritation in the lower right calf and had himself filmed in detail right down to the insertion of a cannula, his followers have to wait.
In his last video so far, he signaled that he was dealing with upcoming sporting challenges. In it he demonstrated the fitness training with which he is preparing for the World Cup. It begins on August 25th in the three host countries, the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia. Germany goes into the tournament on the island of Okinawa in the preliminary round group E with the opponents Australia, Japan and Finland.
What: FAZ
2023-07-02 12:52:00
#Basketball #star #moves #Lakers #NBA #Toronto
