Basketball: Niners Chemnitz: Basketball in Chemnitz: Much more than just league leaders

Kevin Yebo (M.) has developed into the best German point collector in the Bundesliga in Chemnitz.

Photo: imago/Eibner/Joerg Nieberga

“Feel Good Club” is the name of the training center of the Bundesliga basketball team Niners Chemnitz. The name says it all, because the local basket hunters couldn’t feel much more comfortable this season. The team is in the Bundesliga the Surprise club par excellence. With 14:3 victories, the Saxons lead the table ahead of the industry giants Bayern Munich, champions Ulm and Alba Berlin. And in the Europe Cup, Chemnitz have already reached the quarter-finals early and are dreaming of the first major title in the club’s history. Undoubtedly an East German success story that was written without any major financial backers. So what are the success factors for the rapid rise of the club, which was founded in 1999 and has only been playing in the Bundesliga for three and a half years?

Anyone looking for the heart of Chemnitz basketball can find it in two places in the Saxon city of 250,000 inhabitants: in the training hall and in the Niners office. Coach Rodrigo Pastore is just leaving the modern and spacious training court in the “Feel Good Club” and sitting down in the lounge area in front of it. A private operator completely rebuilt and modernized the former tennis hall three years ago according to the Niners’ wishes. Instead of training in a school gymnasium as they once did, the Bundesliga team now trains in a huge ball sports hall that is completely available to them around the clock. One of the success factors, emphasizes the Argentinian Pastore. But the biggest guarantee of success is probably the 51-year-old himself. Since he started in Chemnitz in 2015, when the club was almost relegated to the third division, basketball has been going uphill in the working-class town on the edge of the Ore Mountains.

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One of Pastore’s greatest achievements is that he recognized the potential to shape the city into a basketball location. He compares the climb since then to climbing Mount Everest. “If you want to get to the summit, you have to conquer the mountain camp by camp,” says Pastore. “We are now at the altitude where we need an oxygen mask because we have already made it to a very, very high level.”

It is important to explain to the former Bundesliga professional that the current run cannot be explained by a coincidence. “Our success comes from all the work we do behind the scenes and the development of the players we recruit,” he emphasizes. Pastore has introduced a work attitude in Chemnitz that they call the “Niners identity.” “This work culture and mentality is not marketing, it’s about actually implementing it,” explains the slim man from Buenos Aires. “Nobody rolled out the red carpet for these guys, they had to take the rocky road,” says Pastore. He talks a lot about winning every single day, bringing in the energy, being the best you can be that day. One of the main reasons why basketball players come to Chemnitz is to “become the best version of themselves.”

That was the case with Kevin Yebo, who was one of the last players to trot from training to the locker room. The 2.07 meter man grew up in difficult circumstances in a children’s home, only started playing basketball at the age of 16, quickly became successful, but also acquired a reputation for being unprofessional and not making the most of his talent. The move to Chemnitz in 2022 was perhaps his last chance in the Bundesliga. »Before I came here, I made a conscious decision to implement everything that was expected of me. I’m extremely happy that I can do this and that the trust is paying off,” he says today.

Yebo toiled in summer training in temperatures of up to 50 degrees indoors and laid the foundation for him to currently be the best German scorer in the entire league with 16.2 points per game. “It was only this year that I really understood what it meant to be a professional basketball player,” says the 27-year-old.

Coach Pastore is a constant source of motivation. “He can be very tough sometimes,” says Yebo about the Argentine. »But it is important to him to give us something. This is an honest hardship. You’re never mad when he yells at you. You know he sees something in you and wants to get it out of you. If you trust him, you will be rewarded.«

The athletic and agile giant Yebo, who likes to paint African motifs on canvas in his free time, has created a beautiful linguistic picture of the upswing in Chemnitz: “It’s not a flight of fancy,” he says, “we’re not flying. Because anyone who flies can also fall deeply. Instead, our feet are firmly on the ground. We’re just growing.« Chemnitz giants that have grown in size surprisingly quickly.

After the first two consecutive defeats this season against FC Bayern in the Bundesliga and Varese in the European Cup, it now remains to be seen whether the team is actually stable enough to cope with setbacks. “Our next big step is to become a winning team in the Bundesliga,” says Pastore, outlining the challenge.

In any case, you can rely on the fans. Most of the games in the exhibition hall are sold out with 4,800 often euphoric spectators. Captain Jonas Richter has been playing here since he was six years old and hardly expected this. “It makes me incredibly proud that we have achieved this development in my hometown,” says the 26-year-old. »This is a flagship for Chemnitz and the region. The success is attracting more and more people.” Coach Pastore also thinks that Chemnitz has become a basketball city because the city feels connected to the club.

This is also thanks to manager Steffen Herhold. He played basketball himself in the 90s, liked hip-hop and was rooting for the regional league team at the time. “Basketball has street credibility here, there have always been interfaces with youth culture,” he says. Like so many of his generation, he went to West Germany to study and work and earned good money as a management consultant in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. In 2016 he returned to his hometown. After Pegida and other right-wing groups formed around 2015 and Herhold read the reports about the East, he asked himself in Munich: “What am I actually doing here?”

When the Niners asked, he gave up 75 percent of his income to counter the brain drain from the East. He wanted to make a difference in his hometown, to change something. Not just sportingly, but also politically, economically and socially. When Herhold talks, he sometimes sounds more like a city developer or mayor, not like the managing director of a sports club. The man in his mid-forties not only has his club in mind, but also the entire region.

This mixture of passion, courage and financial know-how combined with Pastore’s sporting ability and ambition sparked the success. Herhold & Co. increased the budget from around 800,000 euros to six million. The club has gathered 210 sponsors. This also created a social network that works together on the vision of an attractive, cosmopolitan Chemnitz. Especially since the right-wing riots and protests in 2018. If you like, the city society has found a new common denominator that creates identity through basketball in the exhibition hall.

“There are many of us,” says Herhold, which sounds like an echo of the chants from all the anti-right demonstrations that have recently taken place across the country. There were also a good 12,000 in Chemnitz on Sunday. The Niners took part in the call for the demo via their social channels. »We are like an anthill. That’s the only way we have a chance.”

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