Menz new national basketball coach – high goals
His new task, which he sees as a rough challenge, approaches the 48-year-old but rather hemdsarmelig. "My goal is to push the team to its limits". We will play intensively, with fun and spirit," promised menz and announced: "defensively, we want to be one of the best teams in europe."
Menz receives an open-ended contract with the german basketball federation, where he was previously responsible for the A2 and U20 team. He achieved an outstanding fifth place with the junior team at the european championships in spain last year, and most recently he has already acted as assistant coach of the national team under pesic. "He has done an excellent job of building up the association. Our ideas are on a roll. Frank is a bit stricter than pesic and very well positioned professionally," is how DBB president ingo weiss described the new head coach.
He now wants to make contact with the national players and the responsible persons of the bundesliga clubs. He will also establish a wire to superstar dirk nowitzki overseas. "I will listen to what his ideas are. Both in the medium and long term," announced menz.
It remains to be seen whether the new national coach will be able to inspire the 2011 NBA champion to play for the DBB again. Nowitzki, who has a knee injury, had recently stressed that it would be difficult for him to imagine taking part in the 2013 european championships. "Nowitzki always enjoys playing for germany when his health permits. We will talk about it in may, june or july. Depending on what happens at dallas. If he doesn’t play in the european championship, we will accept and respect that," explained DBB boss weiss.
Menz, who will receive a substantial salary increase, will therefore initially concentrate on the existing staff. "We have initiated the turnaround and have very good young talent in all age groups. The process will take a while, but i’m confident," said the berlin native, adding: "i have 22 candidates for the twelve spots in the european championship squad. We will work hard to play a good final round next year."
Menz, who began his coaching career in 1994 with the women’s team of wemex berlin and has been with the DBB since november 2006, wants to develop his own style in his new post. "I didn’t want to compare myself to svetislav pesic and dirk bauermann," he stressed. For him, it is very important how the team performs on and off the floor, and he also attaches great importance to a top physique as well as a cultivated conversational tone. In the future, by the way, he will no longer be english. "I will speak german," menz announced.
