Isaac Bonga vs. Luka Doncic: EM Scouting Report

In September 2021, basketball coach Gordon Herbert sat down in his car with a somewhat queasy feeling and drove from Hagen to Braunschweig. He spoke there for the first time to Dennis Schröder, the playmaker of the German national team, whose coach he had been for a few days at the time. When Herbert later sat down in his car and drove from Braunschweig to Hagen, he had a great feeling because Schröder was different than he heard it before.

The great feeling has remained in the next few weeks. Because after the NBA player Dennis Schröder, the NBA player Franz Wagner, who at the time participated in his first season in the world’s best basketball league, signaled the new national coach that he wanted to compete for the national team. But then the great feeling has become a somewhat queasy feeling again. Because another NBA player that the coach wanted in his team hesitated with the promise. And so Gordon Herbert went on a plane in spring 2022 and flew to Toronto.

Today he says: “Dennis and Franz are the best players, but for me Isaac was one of the most important parts of the puzzle in our team.”

Table of Contents

• Against the best
• “Seen what he did with Markkanen?”
• Bonga enthusiastic
• Decoding Bonga’s Defensive Prowess: A Statistical Snapshot
• Frequently Asked Questions

It is Monday evening, 48 hours before the quarter -finals of the European Championship, in front of the duel of the probably best team with the perhaps the best player in the tournament when Herbert goes to the phone in Sicily. There he took part in a mini tournament with the team of FC Bayern Munich, which he now leads as a coach. He only looks at the German national team from a distance. Just like this Wednesday (8 p.m., Magenta Sport and RTL), if she plays against Slovenia in the round of the last eight in the arena in Riga, against Luka Dončić, who scored 42 points in the round of 16 against Italy. Such games against such players are the reason why Herbert flew to Toronto in spring 2022 to speak to Isaac Bonga.

When Herbert arrives in Toronto at the time, he meets a player he used to be trained in Frankfurt, who is made to stop even the best basketball players in the world because of his size (2.04 meters, plus very long arms), his speed and now his muscles. But he also meets a player who already plays for the third team in his fourth season in the NBA and is always used by Toronto only in the so-called G-League, in the development league. “He wasn’t sure where his way would go,” says Herbert. But at that time he carefully suggests where the path with the national team could lead if all players are ready.

In the weeks after, both Herbert and Dennis Schröder spoke to Bonga several times until he also gives his promise. He then missed the 2022 European Championship for an injury, but he is fit for the 2023 World Cup. And when Franz Wagner injured his ankle in the first game, Bonga is also ready. He plays more minutes, he scores more points. However, with his defensive, he makes a decisive contribution to the fact that the path then really led to the World Cup victory, as Herbert’s carefully indicated at the time.

Question to Gordon Herbert: Is the 25-year-old Isaac Bonga ready to defend this Wednesday against 26-year-old Luka Dončić? Answer: “100 percent.”

The special thing about Bonga is the following for Herbert: “He can do more with the ball if he has to do. But he can also do less if he is supposed to do less.” In this tournament, Schröder and Wagner play so well on the offensive that Bonga can use its energy on the defensive. When the Germans have only transformed one of the first 24 three -point throws in the round of 16 against Portugal, it is Bonga who, with individual defense campaigns, ensures that the team keeps the tension. On the phone, Gordon Herbert says: “In my view, Bonga is the best defender of the European Championship.”

But this Wednesday is against the best attacker. It is difficult to very difficult to stop Dončić, says Herbert, but if someone can, then Bonga, because he always has his arms in the game and neither easily scribbling nor easily pushed away. And then he says: “Did you see what he did with Markkanen?”

Markkanen, that is Lauri Markkanen from Finland, who also plays in the NBA because he is 2.13 meters tall, but can throw as good and as quickly as a smaller player. In the first four preliminary round games of the European Championship, he achieved an average of 29 points per game. In the fifth preliminary round game against Germany, he only managed eleven. His opponent: Isaac Bonga. After this game, he says in an interview with “Magentasport”: “I go into such a game and say that if he goes home now, I hope that he has nightmares from me. I hope if he dreams, he will dream of me.”

With this attitude, Bonga also inspires trainers who are not so easy to inspire. When Svetislav Pešić, the national coach of the Serbs, was asked before the European Championship, who was almost as important for the success of the German team as Dennis Schröder and Franz Wagner, but not the focus, he replied: “Isaac bonga.” The reason: “He has made an enormous development since he came back to Europe from the NBA. He is a very versatile player who can defend many positions. For me, Bonga is the core of the German team.”

Isaac Bonga has been playing in Europe again since the summer of 2022. And at Bayern, he immediately showed how valuable he can be in a team not only as a player but also as a teammate. There is a good story from the 2023/24 season, which his former teammate Niels Giffey recently told. When the mood in the Munich team in Bonga’s second season was initially not so good when it was always the same groups at lunch – here the Americans, since the Yugos, the potatoes – Giffey and Bonga had sat down at the end of the table and talked so loudly in English that everyone had to have a say at the table in English. The mood tipped. At the end of the season, the team won the championship and the trophy.

Bonga has been playing for Partizan Belgrade since the summer of 2024. Because there is still a trainer who is not easy to inspire, but the Bonga inspired: Željko Obradović. He, probably the most successful coach in the history of European basketball, can be very strict with his players. And once you have seen and heard how he scolded a player during a break, you can also say it: Anyone who has survived Željko Obradović will also survive Luka Dončić.