Berliner NBA-Star
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As Franz Wagner grows at the Basketball European Championships to the brute leader
Thu 11.09.25 | 8:50 p.m. | From
On Friday, Germany will play against Finland to move into the final of the SEM basketball. The Berliner Franz Wagner leads the team with captain Dennis Schröder – and becomes louder and brutal as a leader. By Jakob Lobach
It was an almost philosophical sentence that Franz Wagner dropped almost casually in the Latvian Riga on Thursday afternoon. The Berlin NBA star and German national player sat on the occasion of a media round at the European Basketball Championship in the modern lobby of the German team hotel-in front of him two dozen journalists, cameras and microphones. Wagner spoke in a calm but clear voice and said at some point: “Everything in life happens in a certain rhythm.”
The rhythm as the key to Wagner
With this sentence, Wagner answered a question about the development of his team. He explained what role bitter defeats play in the creation of their impressive team spirit and how important the one in the European Championship semi-final against Finland on Friday (4 p.m., live in the audio stream on sportschau.de). With the exact same sentence, Franz Wagner could also have described his very personal role and development around this year’s EM.
In any case, “rhythm” is a very good keyword to talk about the 24 -year -old Berliner from Prenzlauer Berg. After all, his game is characterized by this. One of the properties that Wagner make one of the best players in Europe is the pace at which he plays. Better: it is the way he plays at his pace.
Wagner is not as elegant with the ball as Maodo Lo player, he also does not have the arrow -fast start of a Dennis Schröder, but he has an impressive timing. When Wagner pulls into the zone, his steps are not just considered, they are intuitive. The result that has been trained in Berlin and American sports halls for years is that Wagner navigates his way to the basket as rhythmically and handsome as no other-usually.
Ruthlessness as a new strength
But not everything is normal in an EM tournament like the current Germans. The round of 16 of the Serbs and French, which Germany finally turns Germany into a title favorite in front of the semi-finals, was not normal. Germany’s quarter-finals against Slovenia around NBA superstar Luka Doncic was not normal-because Doncic generally plays basketball abnormally well and Germany was very difficult. So hard that suddenly you were abnormally close to leaving.
That is exactly why Franz Wagner no longer relied on his normally so rhythmic game. His drives were still well over, but mostly brutal instead of elegant. A total of 14 free throws stormed into the zone and the basket with his urge. He met 13 of it and always gave Germany important points when the team was difficult to score. This rhythm of a robust ruthlessness is new to Wagner’s game – and only makes it more multifaceted.
Franz Wagner follows Dennis Schröder as the leader
But not only Franz Wagner playfully dictates the events at this year’s European Championship. Already in the run -up to the Orlando Magic, the forward had announced that he wanted to list his team even more communicatively and emotionally. In the past few years it has been captain Dennis Schröder who carried out the development from a sporty to a holistic leader. Now it is Wagner who follows him in a similar clock.
In recent years, Wagner has always been very concerned about the always impressive sporting. His habitus open and off the parquet sometimes reminded of the young people who left Alba Berlin six years ago to go to the USA – very mature, very intelligent, but also very quiet. Unlike his older brother Moritz, Franz was not a person’s big gestures or many words. It is now different, Wagner has become louder.
Larger gestures and clear words
This is in the truest sense of the word: Wagner not only plays more spectacular and harder, he also verbally processes his opponents. Wagner no longer has good drives and hard defense in his repertoire, but also coarse trash talk. Wagner has also become more demanding when dealing with his teammates, and louder and more expressive when celebrating their successful actions.
Apart from the parquet, the new communicative volume of Wagner is more characterized by the frequency and weight with which Wagner speaks. The Berliner meets the increased demand for his person with even more interviews about the German games and training sessions. He speaks longer, gives answers with substance and is very clear in his statements.
Just like on Thursday afternoon when Wagner was asked whether the German team had now established itself in the top of the world. His answer: “We are one of the best teams in the world. I think we have proven this often enough, and tomorrow is the next chance.”
Broadcast: RBB24 Inforadio, 11.09.2025, 4:00 p.m.
