When Dirk Nowitzki joined the NBA, he put the name of Würzburg on the map for American basketball fans as the “German Wunderkind” joined the Dallas Mavericks directly out of the German team of DJK s.Oliver Würzburg. Unfortunately, after Dirkules joined the US league, the team started to struggle both on court and financially, and the club disappeared in the lower leagues a few seasons later. But now, the team is back on the road for a come back in professional German basketball.
With an 85-54 win this Saturday against Ansbach, Würzburg Baskets already secured the first place 5 games before the end of the season in the fourth German division and managed to earn a spot in ProB which is the third highest German league. After an impressive season with 19 wins out of 19 games and an average 31 point advantage per game so far, the team has dominated excessively and fulfilled their self-set goal of going back to the professional level this year. Built around the two US players Monty Rogers and Stanley Hodge together with the veteran Markus Hallgrimson, coach Bisselik managed to create the necessary team spirit for this extraordinary season.
Additionally, the team is having massive support by the local fans and averaged more than 2300 spectators in the fourth highest division of Germany. The team could even qualify directly for the ProA (2nd highest league) as they have the necessary financial and infrastructure background but it is not sure yet what the management wants to do next season. At least it is great news to have this team back among the professional teams and fans from all of Germany congratulated in the different forums for their comeback.
We will see if some other ex-Würzburg players (Demond Greene, Robert Garrett or Olumide Oyedeji) remember their good times with the former X-Rays; at least it would not be a big surprise if Dirk Nowitzki, who is from the Würzburg area, would support the team in the upcoming years.
When Dirk played for Wurzburgh, were they still playing in the lower level German Pro B League?Or did Dirk’s departure to the U.S. initiate the descent of Wurzburgh to the lower level German leagues? It seems a player of his caliber would have been sought after by a top level team such as Alba Berlin.
Dirk played in Würzburg from 1994 to 1998 (when he got drafted)
It was only in the season 1997/1998 where Würzburg managed to earn promotion to Bundesliga with Nowitzki. So he did not play at all in Bundesliga. The team of Würzburg played a few years in the Bundesliga and then collapsed