One-on-One with Bayern Munich and German national team coach Dirk Bauermann

heinnews’s David Hein used the chance of the Bayern Munich-Würzburg ProA basketball highlight to have another chat with Bayern Munich and German national team head coach Dirk Bauermann. They looked back at his thoughts since the beginning of the Bayern Munich project; his up-coming decision about Bayern and the German national team; if he would do a LeBron-like “The Decision” show; Bayern Munich in a European division of the NBA; Tibor Pleiss’s development and future; his thoughts on young players going somewhere to play and not stay on the bench; the chances of Dirk Nowitzki playing at EuroBasket 2011; and Nowitzki playing in Europe.

heinnews: Coach, looking back at how all this with Bayern has developed, what do you think?
Bauermann: When I was weighing the pros and cons of doing this – coaching the second division team as the national team coach – most of my friends said don’t do it. There’s just too big of a risk involved for you personally. What if you guys fail? You’re gonna lose your reputation or you’re gonna hurt your reputation big time. Don’t do it. But at the end of the day I just felt that this project just has such unbelievable potential that is was worth the risk.
After (Steffen) Hamann and (Demond) Greene got hurt, I was like man, they might be right. What is it with the gods of basketball here? But you give a lot of credit to our team. They sucked it up and stuck together and other guys stepped it up and we were able to bring in two other quality guys in (Chad) Prewitt and (Robert) Garrett. So, so far so good.

heinnews: There’s a big issue that’s still there – looks like the gym will be resolved. Your future. Do you have a decision?
Bauermann: No, I don’t have a decision. All I know is that I have a contract until 2013 (with the German Basketball Federation). Bayern is only until the end of this season. And other than that I really can’t comment on the situation because it’s not in my hands. I love doing this but obviously I love being the national team coach as well. We have a young generation that I think needs my support and my experience. So I don’t know what’s gonna happen.

heinnews: So are we gonna see you dress up in a red-and-white stripped shirt and blue jeans and have a Dirk Bauermann – The Decision show like with LeBron James?
Bauermann: (Laughing) No, I’m not that important. I’m just a small piece of the puzzle. I hope that they’ll resolve the problem. Obviously, this has such great potential. And the president (Uli Hoeness) has always said he will only give basketball a second, third, fourth and fifth year if I’m at the helm. He’s said that many times. So I think that puts a lot of pressure on me. It puts a lot of pressure on everybody. Because this is such a great opportunity for basketball in Germany.
I mean come on, look at what happened here today. At the end of the game it was a good game but we’re talking about a second division game. In front of 12,000 people. Other than a few games in Berlin, that was the highest attendance in German basketball and maybe European basketball this season so far. So both nationally and internationally this has great potential and so I just hope a solution can be found.

Zum kompletten Interview auf heinnews.com.