Ratiopharm Ulm is an absolute curiosity in the world of basketball. In a town of only just over 120.000 residents, thanks to very creative thinking they have built one of the strongest youth academies in the world. Their goal is very simply defined: to send one player to the NBA every two years. You think it’s too ambitious? Well, think again. Ulm had two players in the 2024 NBA Draft.
Their reputation in NBA circles is so great that this relatively modest outfit from Germany was invited to play the Portland Trailblazers in a preseason game. Was it a oned sided affair? Hell no, Ulm connected 20 3 pointers, reduced Trailblazers outside shooting to only 5 successful threes, and ended up with a very respectable 110-100 defeat.
Future Stars speaks to the Director of Junior Programmes at Ulm, Thorsten Leibenath about their success and core principles of their business plan.
Explain how is it possible, to build such a unique basketball club in a city with only a fraction over 120.000 people? You are one of the best development centers for young players in Europe or perhaps the whole world. You are also turning it into an incredibly profitable situation.
Unfortunately, we are not incredibly profitable yet, but this is our goal. Earning money from it is definitely our goal. We have made an honest analysis. This analysis made us aware that we won’t be able to compete with Munich and Berlin because our market is too small. We realised that we won’t be able to compete with them on a regular basis. To be competitive with them on a regular basis, you have to have a budget similar to theirs. Maybe not exactly the same but something close. At present, they have a budget which is 3 times what we have, so how could anyone expect that we will be competitive with them? We had to accept that we were not competitive for them. We are below them. At the same time, everyone is fighting for the title, which means that there are 17 teams practically failing with the championship going traditionally to Berlin or Munich. Building a business model on the fact that you are going to fail is pretty depressing. So, we decided that we had to have a different goal. We want to be the best, but we know that we will not have a team to compete regularly for the championship. So, is there something else which we can be the best? We found out that our goal is to become the best in player development. Ironically, thanks to having very good young players, you occasionally become a very competitive team, capable of winning the Championship, which happened last year.
You are building a formidable reputation. Juan Nunez, who was drafted by San Antonio this year, was born in Madrid. For some reason, he didn’t end up at Real Madrid but played with you and he got drafted.
We have a competitive advantage that people don’t realise. We have an advantage over Euroleague teams in terms of offering something interesting to young players. Luka Doncic was the only young player getting realistic responsibility and meaningful time at his team. All other players are denied this opportunity because the competition is too dense and too strong. If you are a 17 or 18-year-old player, you get some garbage time, or if you are super talented, maybe you will play up to 10 minutes. If you are the point guard in this situation you can’t learn how to run the team. But if you are a Euro Cup team which doesn’t have a goal to win the Euro Cup you can offer playing time and important roles to young players. We do have a competitive advantage. We don’t have to win the Euro Cup. We don’t mind having a successful season, but we don’t put pressure on winning the Euro Cup. So, without this pressure, we can experiment with time for the young players and offer important roles in our team. In this situation, we become a very attractive option for players like Nunez and Padet. We didn’t recruit them. They have recruited us. They have checked the market and decided where they want to play.
When have you started to build your philosophy of developing players?
I think we always had this approach but it took us some time to define exactly how we want to do it. Before, a lot of things were happening by accident. Even before I came to this club thirteen years ago, my boss signed 18-year-old Per Guenther, who wasn’t a well-known name then. We signed Robin Benzing and we have taken risks with young players or players with injury history. We do it because we wanted to do things differently. But only five or six years ago we sat down for a couple of weeks going down deeply into finding our true identity. We looked deeply into the structure of the club, and we clearly set out this strategy, and we said let’s become the best talent development in Europe. Or maybe the whole world.
You seem to be doing very well implementing your strategy. In this year’s NBA draft you had two players, Pacome Dadiet who was drafted as a No.25 by the Knicks and Juan Nunez picked by the Pacers with No 36. In 2022 Jeremy Sochan was picked by San Antonio as a No 9 pick
We must keep this trend going, and it won’t be easy. Traditionally the best, youngest prospects are signing in Spain and are doing this at an age when we can’t compete with these clubs. Also, we don’t want to compete with them at this stage. The best 13 years old will go to Real or Barcelona. Maybe to Malaga, Badalona or Gran Canaria. They pick up kids very early when we don’t have the financial resources comparable with these clubs. So, we end up with slightly lesser players. Then maybe, in the later stage, these players are realising that the grass is not greener in Barca or Real because there is not a place on the senior team. Then they are looking for a transfer, but they are already financially spoiled and it’s not so easy to find a consensus. With our financial resources, we are not going to pay a 15-year-old a couple of thousand pounds per month or relocate their entire family, which is what the Spanish clubs do. It is a constant battle that nowadays with the influx of the NIL money will be even more difficult
So how do you see the European landscape changing under the influence of NIL money?
I must tell you that we have already had several players that, as much as we would love them to stay with us, it, doesn’t make sense from the financial point of view. The financial aspect becomes so big that it outweighs all other issues. We must tell players that despite of the fact that their development would be a little better here, we can’t guarantee them that they will become a clear cut Euro Cup or Euroleague player within two or three years. We can offer them one or two thousand pounds per month, but in the USA, they can make perhaps two hundred thousand dollars per season. They must go to the US. So within the last couple of years, we have advised some of our players to go there because it is simply the right suggestion
As a matter of fact, I’m pretty pessimistic about the future of European basketball. It is not only because of the NIL money. The Euroleague is a very ageing league. They are really old with no young players coming. There is no fresh talent coming. Fresh talent goes to College and when they are done with College it is difficult get them back to Europe. G-League has immensely improved their budgets. Traditionally if the player was not good enough for the NBA they were coming to Europe, now he doesn’t mind staying in the G-League for two or three years. Then if he decides that it isn’t the right path he will consider Australia, Japan, and South Korea. So, there is way more competition than in the past. Things are not looking good in Europe from the financial point of view, and we struggle to compete with other markets.
Not a very optimistic view then. Do you see any ways of improving this situation?
The easiest way to improve would be if the NIL money was also paid to the clubs. If we develop the guy for college, we could very easily say that 25% of the money going to the player will go to the club that developed him. This would create an incentive for the clubs to develop players. The other way is, of course, for the NBA to increase the amount of the maximum buyout. At this moment, it is $850,000, and starting next season, it will increase to $875,000. In comparison to what these players will make during their careers, it is ridiculous. In comparison with football, it is laughable. Twenty years old Kai Havertz moves for 80 million Euro, and we are getting 850.000 Dollars. Kai Havertz will make a similar amount of money or even less during his career than Franz Wagner. They are very comparable in terms of the talent and market on which they operate. I know that Wagner went through the college route, but if he went to the NBA from the German club, this club would be entitled to $850.000. Havertz’s first move was worth 80 million Euros for Bayer Leverkussen. For the NBA it would be very easy to improve these buyouts. They increased the salary cap, so there is no issue with increasing buyouts. This would make developing players much more sensible.
Why do you think that basketball can’t work out a proper, International transfer system? You can say a lot of bad things about football but the transfer system there is quite clear to everyone.
It is the NBA. The NBA has a monopoly on the system, and nobody can break it. All players want to play in the top league. But maybe the best team for them is actually Fenerbahce for instance. Fenerbahce would pay a 4 million buyout for someone like Juan Nunez, but he is interested in going to the top league. So, at this moment, clubs will pay buyouts, a maximum of 2 million Euro for 27 or 28-year-old players but not for the young ones. Top young players want to go to the NBA, who says that $850,000 is the maximum buyout and you can’t do anything because they have the monopoly. Fenerbahce is not able to challenge it because the player wants to play in the top league, not second best.
I understand this aspect but the relationship between European clubs could be much better as well. Not everyone can go to the NBA but also movement between European clubs is far from ideal.
It is really poor. We don’t have a legit system. If a French team wants to buy one of our talents, we are getting £3000, which is an absolute joke. Soccer was able to work out a smart transfer system and we weren’t able to do it.
You have been at the heart of German basketball for several decades but also you have experience of British basketball from coaching the Scottish Rocks. Explain to us what were the main factors responsible for the very strong growth of German basketball in recent years? Historically German basketball was not necessarily better than British basketball. Now British basketball is where it is, and Germany are World Champions.
You are right. In the past, both countries really sucked, and now Germany dramatically improved. The situation is still not great because the financial resources are very limited. I have been involved in basketball in both countries so I can compare it very well. In Germany, we have set up very high standards for every club in the top division. Each team must meet certain criteria. It started thirty years ago with the condition of having wooden sprung floors. Then we demanded to have an arena for three thousand spectators. Then came the condition of having two or three full-time coaches in the youth department. All these standards are absolutely crucial to the development of German basketball. Another factor separating basketball in both countries is the lack of a relegation system in England. What I noticed is that in February, when the season is on the line in Germany, teams are investing to stay in the league. Ok, they sometimes invest too much and go bankrupt. What happens in Great Britain is the teams that are out of sight for the playoffs or winning something are getting rid of players. They are saying it’s time to save some money, we will try next year. They simply don’t care; they are saying we will try next year; let’s see whether the lottery of the import players will work out better. They don’t have an ambition which we see in the leagues with the relegation system. Look at the relegation system in English soccer. It is fantastic and creates a lot of excitement. Having said all these things I think that there is a fantastic base to build very strong basketball in the UK. The natural talent is fantastic, but you need to build a better environment around it. For me, it starts with the relegation system and developing a high organisational standard. This will mean that a lot of teams will drop out because they can’t fulfil all requirements. But you need to be very strong and ruthless in implementing these standards, and with time, you will have enough teams to have a competitive league. In Germany, in the upcoming season in the BBL, we will only have 17 teams because we couldn’t find an 18th team that fulfilled the criteria. Ok, so let it be, because I think it is very important to stick to our standards; otherwise, you are not ambitious enough.
