News for the 2007/08 BBL season

[CWILL]

Even though the play-offs haven't started yet, some teams already announced new players or contract extensions for the new season.

ALBA Berlin extended the contract with Guard Julius Jenkins. The 26 year old american will remain two more years in Berlin.
Berlin already has eight players for next season: Chris Owens (player's option), Koko Archibong, Johannes Herber, Nico Simon, Philip Zwiener, Oskar Faßler and Yannick Evans.

Meanwhile TBB Trier re-signed Point Guard Marcus Taylor and Josh Almanson. German-american Jonathan Moore, who played for second division team Bayreuth was signed by Trier too.

Gießen 46ers re-signed with Point Guard Obie Trotter and inked german talent Johannes Lischka, who had a very good development at their farmteam TV Lich.

After not making the play-offs, Oldenburg fired coach Don Beck!

Both new teams Ulm and Paderborn had an outstanding first year in the BBL. They never really had to fear relegation and want to keep their players.
Ulm signed the smallest Center in the world Jeff Gibbs for 3 more years.
And Paderborn re-signed german Marius Nolte and american Steven Esterkamp.

Igor Perovic, who had the only triple double in this season, signed another year with Tübingen.

[robbe]

Predrag Krunic is the new coach of EWE Baskets Oldenburg!

I think this is a good move. Don Beck did not get anything going at Oldenburg, despite having the 3rd-4th highest budget in the league. Oldenburg are the underarchievers of the last 5 years.
With Krunic, finally another european coach has arrived. I expect him to bring in some european players and find a good mixture, just like he did at Bonn.

[Trifilli]

Good signing. And there's hope again that things might change a bit next season in the BBL. At least some of the clubs might stop being development/college teams. Hopefully Frankfurt will be next...
With their budget and a coach like Krunic (who also has some good contacts, which might help them signing some good euro players) Oldenburg might not immediately turn into a contender, but I'd expect them to be one of the better BBL teams next year.

[CWILL]

Very good signing! It's good to have such a great coach like Krunic back in BBL!

It will be interesting to see, if Krunic will still count on european players.
When he worked in Bonn he usually relied on Euro players, but now there's no foreigner restriction in BBL. I think even Krunic will have to work with at least 3 or 4 americans on his team.
If I were him, I'd want to keep McCoy, Penigar and Fischer and built a new team around those three players.
I think someone like Carl Krauser should be a nightmare for a coach like Krucic...

Pedrag Krunic has good contacts and brought a lot of great players to Germany. He managed to get players like Aleksandar Nadjfeji, Terrence Rencher, Rimantas Kaukenas, Aleksandar Capin and Branko Milisavljevic for Bonn.
I'm looking forward to that new 07/08 Oldenburg team!

[robbe]

It will be interesting to see, if Krunic will still count on european players.
When he worked in Bonn he usually relied on Euro players, but now there's no foreigner restriction in BBL. I think even Krunic will have to work with at least 3 or 4 americans on his team.
If I were him, I'd want to keep McCoy, Penigar and Fischer and built a new team around those three players.
I think someone like Carl Krauser should be a nightmare for a coach like Krucic...

Agree. Point Guard position is key, and rumour has it that Oldenburg has already contacted a current playoff participant playing this position.
But it's weak, good chance that it isn't true. But PG should nevertheless be Krunic' first off season signing.

Krunic' contacts to the balkans have of course been excellent, but great US(-college)-signings like Oluoma Nnamaka have more been down to Arvid Kramer.
I'm very interested in what he will do at Oldenburg.

I'd keep shot blocker Fischer and perhaps veteran crowd favourite McCoy too. Depends on what the latter asks in terms of money and role. Fischer should fit. Needs not too many touches (center would not get that many in Krunic' system anyway) but still very effective. But I'm not so sure whether Penigar, who is no doubt a good individual player, is what Krunic wants at the SF spot. I think PG and PF will be the main contributors on offense.

[LuDux]

ALBA Berlin extended the contract with Guard Julius Jenkins. The 26 year old american will remain two more years in Berlin.
Berlin already has eight players for next season: Chris Owens (player's option), Koko Archibong, Johannes Herber, Nico Simon, Philip Zwiener, Oskar Faßler and Yannick Evans.

What about Mazeika? He should have 1 more year of contract left.

[CWILL]

What about Mazeika? He should have 1 more year of contract left.

With Alba now having young german talent Nicolai Simon, who was recently named Rookie of the year, on their team, I don't see any space for Mazeika!

I don't know whether he has still a contract in Berlin, but I don't see him playing there next season. He should try to stay in Bonn where he played okay this season.

[Lucky]

Hello from Girona. I've read that Marcin Gortat wants to play in ACB or NBA. Any notice about his future?

[CWILL]

Hello from Girona. I've read that Marcin Gortat wants to play in ACB or NBA. Any notice about his future?

Gortat was given the advice by the Orlando Magic, that he should leave BBL and play in Italy or Spain.
I think Marcin is going to play Summer League again and if he won't make it to pre-season roster of Orlando, he'll probably look for a team in Spain or Italy.

[woma]

Hello from Girona. I've read that Marcin Gortat wants to play in ACB or NBA. Any notice about his future?

First he should think about stopping Judson Wallace and Adam Chubb from doing whatever they want in BBL quartefinals, since for now he makes them look like a future Euroleague stars .

[PHILIPeurobasket]

Hello from Girona. I've read that Marcin Gortat wants to play in ACB or NBA. Any notice about his future?

Gorata two weeks ago in interview said that his agent talk with some clubs (also Prokom Trefl), but he want spent next season in ACB, and then go to NBA ... Do you know maybe witch club fro mACB think about him

[german]

Spoke his agent from the ACB or Spain? In the LEB he could be a starter, but in the ACB he ist only a man for 10 min.

[PHILIPeurobasket]

Spoke his agent from the ACB or Spain? In the LEB he could be a starter, but in the ACB he ist only a man for 10 min.

They talk about ACB, and Gortat said that good team who fight in Euroleague want him in team ...

[robbe]

DB Skyliners Frankfurt have signed US(<-- I'm so damn surprised)-Guard Jimmy Hunt from Kemoplast Alpos Sentjur for three years. Any opinions about him?

[elaj]

DB Skyliners Frankfurt have signed US(<-- I'm so damn surprised)-Guard Jimmy Hunt from Kemoplast Alpos Sentjur for three years. Any opinions about him?

He is a good fella from what I heard, a good person. Very quick point guard with decent defense. When he is "on fire" he can score on everyone and from everywhere. Sometimes he has some problems with decision making, but he improved that in his last season here. He should be cheap as hell - from what I heard he was making around 1500€ per month in Slovenia.

Hunt played at "Snaidero Draft" free agent camp a week ago, I guess Skyliners saw him there.

[Joško Poljak Fan]

I think he actually has a degree from math
damn, I wished Slovan/Helios would get him next season...

[DanMajerle]

So every Skyliners player will come from the Snaidero camp just like last year, when every new player came from one camp

[Trifilli]

The Skyliners signed Murat Didin on a 2+1 year contract.

An additional info for the guys from Frankfurt: Mike Kalavros is the new assistant coach of Vangelis Alexandris (Kolossos Rhodes) and leaves the Skyliners.

[Limitless]

Some more coaching news from the BBL: The Giessen 46ers extended the contract with assistant coach Gerald Wasshuber. Wasshuber, who joined the 46ers last season from his native Austria, will stay at least until the end of the 2007-08 campaign. Besides that, the 46ers will announce the signing of another combo guard in the upcoming week.
TBB Trier also announced their new assistant coach. Mike Smith, last at BV Chemnitz 99ers (2nd div), will join the coaching staff of Joe Whelton.

More player signings: A Paderborn newspaper reports that Jason Edwin, who spent the last two seasons with FC Schalke 04 of the 2nd division, has signed with the Paderborn Baskets. And, already confirmed: EWE Baskets Oldenburg signed youngster Daniel Hain, who probably won't get to spend much time on the court after averaging 3.5 PPG last year with Herten of the 2nd division.

[Limitless]

And the Giessen 46ers once more: The team, which will start its 41st season in the BBL this Fall, announced the signing of G Shawan Robinson, who spent the last season with Newcastle in the UK. Prior to that, the native of North Carolina played college ball for the Clemson Tigers in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Robinson is the widly expected signing from the British Basketball League, since Coach Thorsten Leibenath spent the last season with the Scottish Rocks.

Additional BBL news:

BG Goettingen announced that C Michael Schroeder and F Selim Mulic will stay with the team, who got promoted to the BBL as the champion of the 2nd division North.