It’s the last game before Christmas, Gladiators Trier against Telekom Baskets Bonn: sold out SWT Arena, great atmosphere. Not just because head coach Jacques Schneider announced his early contract extension before the game. The Gladiators win after overtime. At this point, almost none of the 5,400 fans know that development player Eli Brooks is playing his last game for the Gladiators and that his flight to Spain the next day has already been booked.
The following home game, the first of the year: Another narrow home win, against Ulm, it’s another emotional game (the last of Aggy Mock!). And almost everyone in the audience sees Eli Brooks’ successor live in action for the first time: Steven Ashworth. Also an American point guard, like Brooks. Also someone with a lot of talent, that can be said after the first minutes of the game in Europe.
Basketball Bundesliga: That’s what’s behind the transfers
But how does a transfer like this actually work behind the scenes in the middle of the season? Who decides? What needs to be taken into account? This is what Gladiators managing director Florian Hosseini-Görge and head coach Jacques Schneider tell Volksfreund.
What happened after Eli Brooks announced his departure? “The starting point is a meeting with the management – that is, with Achim Schmitz, Don Beck, Ralph Held, Jacques Schneider and me. We then discuss what kind of budget we have available, what kind of framework we have at our disposal. In the next step it is the turn of the sporting area,” reports Florian Hosseini-Görge. The scouting work is primarily done by Schneider and the assistant coaches Philipp Staiger and Kevin Oberlack, but there is “a lively exchange, Don Beck and Ralph Held also give their assessment”.
There is a large network of agents who are contacted, “even though most of them notice when we are looking and send us suggestions anyway.” This means: “We were offered very, very many players. In the end, it condenses from a large initial pool to perhaps five to ten players who would be very suitable for us.”
We’ll be exploring again there too. “If the sporting area has decided on two or three players, then Jacques makes a lot of phone calls and also makes two or three video calls with the potential newcomer. Character is extremely important to us. We stand for team basketball, so the team chemistry has to be right. If I have the green light that a player fits both athletically and in terms of character, then I take over and talk to the player’s agent and negotiate the salary,” explains Hosseini-Görge.
He continues: “Sometimes there is a transfer fee, sometimes not. It’s about the contract term, about bonuses, about the whole contract, so the negotiations are up to me. When we have an agreement, I draw up the contract, it is signed – and then the work in the office really starts.”
Jacques Schneider already had his eye on new signing Steven Ashworth in the summer
Since the upheaval at the Gladiators in the summer of 2023 – at that time, among others, Don Beck, Jacques Schneider and numerous players from the current BBL squad came to Trier – there have been many direct hits when it comes to new and subsequent signings, and practically no mistakes. There may be something “in the right place at the right time”. For example, when Jordan Roland was re-signed in November 2024. He was coming back from a long injury break, Trier was in the middle of the table in the second division after a weak start – and the American is currently the player of the month for December in the Basketball Bundesliga.
None of this is a coincidence. “My job is to keep an eye on the player market all year round,” says Jacques Schneider. Also the international leagues such as the Champions League, EuroCup, FIBA Europe Cup – but also the G-League. “We follow the games, the teams and, logically, the players in the duel. Also because at a certain point in time, teams are eliminated from European competitions and some players have out options (= exit clauses) in their contracts.” Steven Ashworth came to Trier from the American G-League.
“He was already on my list in the summer when we were looking for a replacement for Marcus Graves. At that time, Steven was still a rookie, he came straight from college. You could see his potential, but he hadn’t sufficiently demonstrated it at the time. I then saw him play live in Las Vegas in the NBA Summer League, so I had a first impression.”
“The market was rather thin” – and yet there are 93 names on the list
At the time of Eli Brooks’ departure, the market was rather thin. Comparatively speaking, according to Schneider, there were “93 names for the position,” most of which were brought into play by agents. But many of them quickly became redundant when looking at statistics and previous positions, and they looked more intensively at around 25 players: “After one and a half or two weeks of research, two, three, four candidates popped up for us who were really interesting. Also players who were just in Europe.” For Schneider it was a big advantage to sign a player who was “in game shape” and who was no longer sidelined.
Steven Ashworth met all the requirements, says Schneider, “especially the character criteria, which I learned about in the personal video call. I also obtained information about him.” Specifically: with long-time BBL player Bryce Taylor, who knows the Bundesliga very well and who was Ashworth’s assistant coach in the G-League: “He has a lot of trust in him and was able to assess how he would perform in the Bundesliga.” Gladiators mental coach Rainer Meisterjahn also met Ashworth on site in the USA, “we got feedback there too”.
Leave a lasting impression – that applies to both sides
“Steven Ashworth wasn’t 100 percent convinced at the beginning,” reports Schneider. For family reasons. It is the first time that the 25-year-old has been outside the USA; he came to Trier with his wife and their one-and-a-half-year-old son. “But from the day he got here he was completely confident in his decision.” The Gladiators had some good arguments on their side when looking for a point guard: “We have a functioning team, and the role that the player takes on with us is of a high level: The German Bundesliga is a top league in Europe, we were looking for a starting point guard, we are doing well and have also received a lot of attention in the media. That was also an argument for Steven. It was about leading a team.”
Before a new one arrives: How scouting works at the Gladiators Trier
Jacques Schneider says how the coaching team divides the work: “Kevin Oberlack and Philipp Staiger look at the players individually or with me on the scouting platforms. Philipp looks at the defense, then writes an evaluation form, Kevin does the whole thing for the offense. There are grades from 1 to 10, how we classify the players defensively and offensively. I then watch entire games to see how the player behaves on the field.” Then you come to a result – but not always a contract. “It can also happen that the player wants twice as much money as we have available.” Scouting is one thing, but the Trier team also attach great importance to continuity in the squad. Center Marten Linßen extended his contract until 2028 early on.
Schneider would also like to work with other players from the current squad beyond the season: “We have some players in our ranks who are currently developing very well and who are already playing a bigger role in the Bundesliga than expected, with whom we want to continue on the path – we are also in discussions about that. We are looking week after week and month after month at how we can bring the squad together at an early stage. We want to have a good core, a good foundation, and strengthen ourselves at the top.”
This is how much a G-League player costs
Transfer fees? They generally don’t make clubs or agents public, they agree to maintain secrecy, and exit clauses for players tend not to be communicated. It is different if a league has a so-called buyout clause that is publicly known. That was the case with Steven Ashworth, who played in the American G-League before moving to Trier, with Noblesville Boom, a farm team of the NBA club Indiana Pacers.
In the G-League, $50,000 is set as the “buyout” amount. As the Gladiators announced, Ashworth has a contract until the end of the season, but there is an option to re-sign him. Hosseini-Görge does not want to comment on the details. But there is “the possibility that he will play with us for another year if all the parameters are right and the general conditions are right.”
What players can expect: Apartment, car, net salary, little bureaucracy
Finding a suitable player and convincing them to come to Trier: That is the most important thing for basketball fans. But before a new signing scores his first points, there is a lot of work to be done behind the scenes. “Then we have to react quickly in many places. A lot of things are intertwined at the same time,” says Hosseini. For example: book flights, register the player with the city, apply for a work permit. Take care of health insurance, open an account, register the player with the league. Medical check, photo shoot for the league, much more. “We want to make it as easy as possible for the players so that they can concentrate on what’s important,” says Hosseini-Görge.
