FC Bayern Basketball: Easy Win Amidst Challenges

It took almost 30 minutes for the Munich basketball players to finally thaw out. That probably had less to do with the fact that after the game against Central German BC, the pop singer Zartmann and his band gave a concert in BMW Park. The singer is popular with the younger audience; Bayern always bring top acts to basketball games in the hall under the label “Music meets Basketball”. Of course, Zartmann, who recently won the audience’s Bambi and is not disclosing his real name and age to protect his privacy, had his number one hit “Tau mich auf” with him; the ball-playing supporting act had only inspired this late.

Wenyen Gabriel is 28 years old and his name is Wenyen Gabriel. He didn’t win a public Bambi. But it was the South Sudanese-American basketball professional who got the spectators in the sold-out hall with 6,600 spectators in the right mood when he hammered the ball into the opponent’s basket several times in the last quarter. Until then, the top game in the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) between champions FC Bayern and cup winners Mitteldeutscher BC had inspired the fewest spectators; in fact, the game between the league leaders and the runners-up remained at a manageable level for a long time.

Ultimately, it was enough for the hosts to win by a clear 83:62. Like their colleagues in the football division, the champions are far ahead of the competition and boredom is already looming. A few energetic minutes in the last quarter were enough for the favorites to win the game after a weak start, with the guests leading 30:27 at the break. Gabriel’s dunkings, who achieved a personal BBL best with 21 points and also collected 13 rebounds, as well as a three-pointer from Justinian Jessup at the final siren of the third quarter heralded an 18-0 run that the Weißenfels team had no chance of countering. Until then it was a struggle at times, with Munich’s significantly better team playing below their potential.

In Belgrade the fans boo their own team, but Bayern lose their nerve

Players like Spencer Dinwiddie, for example, a sensational entry from the NBA who remained inconspicuous for a long time despite his twelve points and six assists. Or world and European champion Andreas Obst, who only finished off the brave guests in the last few minutes with three impressive threes in a row. The BBL has never seen anyone like Dinwiddie; there are five current European champions in the squad, as well as top players like Serbian playmaker Stefan Jovic and Xavier Rathan-Mayes, who came from Real Madrid.

It is also true that in this ensemble of individual talent, the team game is in disarray. The deficits in the coordination were obvious, passes were repeatedly thrown out of bounds. In addition to the ball losses and misunderstandings, the shooting rates were poor at the start, with just eight of 31 attempts in the first half hitting the target. This individual class is sufficient for opponents from the BBL. Internationally, things are different, where the basketball players, in contrast to the football players, lose out.

In the Euroleague, slackers are punished mercilessly. The most recent example was the game at Partizan Belgrade, which the Munich team lost 85:92 after a strong start. The opportunity was better than ever, the weakening Belgrade had recently fired coach Zeljko Obradovic, the nine-time Euroleague winner is revered like a saint in Belgrade. An unforgivable act from the perspective of the Serbian fans, who booed their own team until the final quarter. Nevertheless, it was the Munich team who lost their nerve and acted nervously and incorrectly.

It was the fifth defeat in a row, FCB slipped to 18th place, eight places behind the first play-in place, the minimum target. The reasons are obvious: In addition to the lack of preparation, Bayern have to deal with a never-ending misery of injuries. The Latvian playmaker Rokas Jokubaitis, around whom the team was supposed to be built, returned from the European Championships with a torn cruciate ligament. World and European champion Johannes Voigtmann is not at 100 percent after a knee injury, important players such as Kamar Baldwin and Rathan-Mayes are repeatedly missing.

What’s more: European champions Justus Hollatz and Oscar da Silva, who recently had strong performances in the national team, are not getting going at FCB. Isaiah Mike is in a performance slump, Jovic and Vladimir Lucic are in the autumn of their career. And new signings such as Serbian international Aleksa Radanov and US center David McCormack fall far short of expectations. To make matters worse, coach Gordon Herbert also had to sit out for weeks because he caught a corona infection and was missing for six games.

At a club like FC Bayern, failure can quickly result in consequences

On Sunday, the world champion maker was pacing back and forth on the sidelines again, but he didn’t like what he saw: “I’m happy to be back. I’m doing well and I hope that we’ll be playing better basketball soon. It’s not that important whether we win or lose, but we have to get better.” Herbert knows that there are difficult times ahead for him, at least internationally, because the schedule with up to three games per week and recently six away games in a row does not allow for recovery or style-forming training. According to Herbert, everything is still possible in the tight Euroleague race, but we have to start winning again as quickly as possible.

At a club like FC Bayern, if failure continues, there are quickly consequences, everyone involved knows that, the planned national double cannot cover up everything – if it succeeds. Sports director Dragan Tarlac said the first consequences are already coming: the contracts with Radanov and McCormack, which expire at Christmas, “will not be extended”. It is not yet clear whether the squad will be re-signed or whether the squad will be slimmed down, says Tarlac. What is clear, however, is that “we have to quickly find balance in the team.” It’s not about making the players happy, but about better results.