Keystone-Sda | Friday, June 27, 2025
The Freiburg Yanic Konan Niederhäuser hovers on cloud seven according to its first round draft in the NBA. The 22-year-old center enjoys it and looks back on a crazy night.
“I am enjoying these moments with my family,” reports the fourth Swiss NBA-draft to Thabo Sefolosha, Clint Capela and Kyshawn George on the phone from New York, and remembers the evening when he had to wait until the last announcement to climb the podium and shake hands with the NBA boss Adam Silver.
“It’s just the beginning”
“We waited in the box and my agent comes to me and tells me that the Los Angeles Clippers will choose me,” he says. Then I get up and hurry to the podium after I have been congratulated by my family. I am on the podium down and wait for me to get up to shake my hand to Adam Silver, I felt that it wasn’t real. “
The head in the clouds, the feet firmly on the ground: Niederhäuser enjoys the moment without losing a look for the essentials. “It’s just the beginning – a step and the perfect scenario for me,” he says. The Freiburger is already thinking of the work that is waiting for him from the coming weekend in Los Angeles, the city in which he always wanted to live. There the Summer League is waiting for him and the opportunity to develop further.
Play with harden – his idol –
Yanic Konan Niederhäuser made the leap into the NBA in a few weeks. When asked how he would have reacted in January if someone had predicted that the Clippers were drafting him in 30 years, the 2.15 meter tall giant was surprised: “I would have said: Thank you for believing me. I want that, I will work and try to do everything to realize my dream.”
This dream leads him to Los Angeles, where he meets stars like James Harden and Kawhi Leonard. After playing with Thabo Sefolosha in Oklahoma City and Clint Capela in Houston, Harden will now get to know a third Swiss NBA player. “This is my idol,” says Niederhäuser. “When I was young, I often looked at games from hardness, and now I can play with him!”
Niederhäuser’s popularity will also increase. His subscribers on Instagram have already doubled from 6000 to 12,000. “This is cool,” says the Freiburger, who is considered very disciplined and, according to his agent Sevag Keucheya, “did everything right”. Now he will work to shine from LA in the spotlight.
