Gabi Chachashvili will be the third Israeli in the German league.
He joins Tamir Blatt and Yuval Sussman who play for Alba Berlin.
Until a few years ago, his team in Amberg was number 1 in Germany with seven championships between 2010 and 2017 and seven seasons in the Euroleague, but since then the balance of power has changed.
As of recent years, the hegemony has passed to Alba and Bayern Munich, the current German Euroleague teams, while Bamberg has remained behind.
In the last season, thanks in large part to the arrival during the season of coach Oren Amiel, Bamberg somehow managed to squeeze into the playoffs, but no more than that.
Last season it did not even play in the European fixtures last season, for the first time since 2003. This season it will play in the Champions League qualifiers, another clear evidence of the erosion of its status.
Amiel.
Part of the revolution in Bamberg, photo: Maor Alxalsi
gone too far
Several factors contributed to Bamberg's great retreat.
Absurdly one of them is success.
The attempt to preserve the success and the place in the Euroleague caused it to spend large sums and the club ran into significant financial problems, which forced it to cut budgets.
Other reasons, some of which are also related to the economic issue, are two significant departures.
Coach Andrea Trinchieri has finished a very successful tenure of four seasons.
Equally important, the professional manager Daniela Baizi moved to Bayern Munich.
To the credit of the Italian professional manager, there are records of very great successes in signing significant players in the club.
From here a crisis began.
The first goal was survival and now they have opened a kind of new page there with a new policy according to the changed conditions - a team that is built on young people with long-term contracts and player promotion.
Chachashvili is part of the trend.
Amiel, who came to Bamberg after being fired from Po'el Yerushalayim, will try to lead it down this path.
Intermediate: discover, develop, earn
Despite the devaluation of her position, Bamberg remains one of the best in Germany when it comes to discovering and developing players, and this may help the Israeli center.
The club is known for its scouting and ability to improve players.
Along with the Spanish Basque Country, Bamberg is the one that has contributed the most players to the higher levels.
The list is long, and includes, among others, Kyle Haynes, who started his glorious career in Bamberg;
Udo Lu and Tibor Pleiss became prominent players in Germany;
Brad Wanamaker, Daniel Theis and Darius Miller have made it to the NBA and the list goes on.
Kyle Haynes in a Milan uniform.
A great career that started in Bamberg, photo: Alan Shiver
Daniel Hackett went from a mediocre guard in Bamberg to a five-man player in CSKA Moscow. Fabian Kozer came to Real Madrid (via Basconia), and the outstanding story is Niccolò Meli, whose career was arranged by Bamberg.
He came to her after a major crisis in Milan as a mediocre interior player.
During his time in Bamberg, he rose to life, reached the NBA and now has come full circle with his return to the Euroleague, to Milan.
All the names mentioned so far constitute only a partial list of those who were discovered or developed in Bamberg.
Even in the years of the crisis, the trend continued, even if it was delayed: Paris Lee and Devon Hill reached the Euroleague, Luis Olinda for Bayern Munich and Christian Schengfelder and Kenneth Ogbe will be on the German team's squad for Eurobasket.
Cameron Tyler, who moved to Maccabi Tel Aviv, and Ratin Obasohan, who played for Hapoel Jerusalem, also moved to Bamberg, so Gabi Chachashvili now gets a great opportunity to join the long and distinguished list.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
