5 German NBA Players You Need to Know

The NBA is home to some of the best basketball players in the world, and Germany has been represented well in recent years Here are 5 German NBA players you need to know.

Dirk Nowitzki

Dirk Nowitzki is a retired German professional basketball player He is a 14-time NBA All-Star a 12-time All-NBA team member, and the first European player to start in an All-Star game He is also a former NBA MVP and Finals MVP Nowitzki was drafted 9th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in 1998 and immediately traded to the Dallas Mavericks where he spent his entire 21-year career.

Nowitzki is widely regarded as one of the best shooting big men of all time and has become one of the most popular players in the history of the sport. He is also known for his charitable work off the court, with a focus on children’s education and health care

Chris Kaman

Chris Kaman is a 7-foot center who played for the Los Angeles Clippers, New Orleans Hornets, and Portland Trail Blazers He was born in Überlingen, Germany, and played professionally in Germany and the United States Kaman was an All-Star in 2010 and he has represented Germany in international competitions.

Dennis Schröder

Dennis Schröder is a German professional basketball player for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played three seasons of college basketball for the Indiana Hoosiers and was selected by the Atlanta Hawks with the 17th overall pick in the 2013 NBA draft He was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team in 2014. Schröder was traded to the Thunder in 2018.

Schröder is one of only five German players to have been drafted in the first round of an NBA Draft He is also the only German player to have been named to an NBA All-Rookie Team

Daniel Theis

Daniel Theis is a German Professional Basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also represents the German national team in international competition. Theis played four seasons of college basketball in Germany for SG Braunschweig and Ratiopharm Ulm before moving to the United States to play for the Celtics in 2017.

Theis was born in Merzig, Saarland, and started playing organized basketball at age 16 with his local team TBB Trier. He eventually joined the junior team of Bundesliga club BG Karlsruhe. In 2010, Theis moved to Germany’s top-tier level Bundesliga club SG Braunschweig, where he played for their junior team and then their main squad. In 2012, he joined another Bundesliga club, Ratiopharm Ulm.

Theis was selected by the Boston Celtics with the 45th overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft On July 13, 2017, he signed a two-year contract with the Celtics worth $4 million, with $1 million guaranteed.

In his rookie season, he averaged 5.3 points and 2.9 rebounds per game while shooting 61 percent from the field and 33 percent from three-point range

Maxi Kleber

Maxi Kleber is a German professional basketball player who plays for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Kleber was born in Würzburg, Germany and began his professional career with s. Oliver Baskets of the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) in 2012. He was named to the All-BBL Rookie Team in 2013. In 2014, Kleber joined Riesen Ludwigsburg where he helped the team win the German cup in 2015. He signed with the Mavericks in 2017.

Kleber has won two gold medals with the German National Team at EuroBasket 2015 and the FIBA World Cup in 2017.

Moritz Wagner

Wagner, a 6-foot-11 big man, was born in Berlin and raised in Mitte, a central district of the German capital. He started playing competitive basketball at the age of nine with local team TBB Trier. When he was 14, he moved to the United States to play High School basketball and then attended the University of Michigan where he played for three years before declaring for the 2018 NBA draft Wagner was selected 25th overall by the Los Angeles Lakers He made his Nba Debut on October 2, 2018, against the Portland Trail Blazers

Isaac Bonga

Isaac Bonga, a 6’8” shooting guard/small forward from Germany, was selected with the 39th pick in the 2018 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers Bonga is the third German-born player to be drafted in the NBA, after Dallas Mavericks center Dirk Nowitzki and Utah Jazz center Detlef Schrempf.

Bonga played for the German National Team at the 2017 FIBA EuroBasket, averaging 11 points per game He also competed at the 2016 FIBA U-18 European Championship, where he averaged a team-leading 15.1 points per game

Paul Zipser

Paul Zipser (born February 18, 1994) is a German professional basketball player for the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Zipser was selected with the 48th overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft by the Bulls. He played two seasons of College Basketball for the University of California Berkeley before declaring for the draft.

Zipser grew up in Heidelberg, Germany, and began playing basketball at age 10. He started his professional career with Deutsche Telekom Baskets Bonn of the Basketball Bundesliga in 2012. In 2013, he moved to FC Bayern Munich where he played until 2016. During his time with Bayern Munich, Zipser won the 2014 Eurocup rising star Award and was named to the All-Eurocup Second Team in 2015. He was also a member of the German national team that won a bronze medal at EuroBasket 2015.

Johannes Voigtmann

Voigtmann, 25, was born in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and developed his game in the German second division with science-fiction inspired team name Eisbären Bremerhaven. After two seasons there, he joined fiber-optic giants (yes, that’s their actual name) Deutsche Telekom Baskets Bonn of the top-flight Bundesliga. In Bonn, he really came into his own as a floor-spacing big who could also put the ball on the deck and make plays for others.

Luke Kennard

Luke Kennard is a shooting guard for the Detroit Pistons He was born in Franklin, Ohio and played College Basketball for Duke University Kennard was drafted in the first round of the 2017 NBA Draft by the Pistons. He is one of five German-born players currently in the NBA.