Danilo Barthel has had his best season as a pro at FC Bayern Basketball. SPOX spoke to the new Bavaria captain about his mental development, the EuroLeague and his goals with the national team.
Furthermore: Why he is not worried about a lack of competition like in football and how Dennis Schröder appears on the DBB team.
SPOX: Mr. Barthel, how do you spend the summer as a reigning finals MVP?
Danilo Barthel: Certainly with a slightly different perspective. You can see everything a little bit more relaxed if you have just become German Champion and have also personally played a very successful season. Otherwise there are moments when you think of certain defeats or certain negative situations, that was less the case – basically I was able to switch off from basketball a little better this summer.
SPOX: Was this season and this award again a special confirmation for you? You had already collected some successes before.
Barthel: Sure, I think that both show that I’m always working and not satisfied, not even with previous successes or good seasons. I want to improve every year and be ready when the opportunities arise, even though things may not go as well as I had hoped. But I have always worked towards being ready when there is another or bigger role waiting for me, as was the case last season.
SPOX: They became champions – and that also meant that Bavaria will play EuroLeague next season. Was it clear to you that you would stay?
Barthel: It was definitely an important factor, a decisive argument for me. Of course, they keep their eyes open and always consider whether another situation might be better, but this time it was very easy for me and I quickly decided to extend. I believe that the team and I can definitely still grow together, which is why Bavaria continues to offer me a very good situation.
SPOX: You’ve been with FCB for two years now. What has been your greatest progress since then?
Barthel: It’s just an adjustment process. If you have to play against extremely good players in training every day and basically play at a higher level, you automatically learn and gain self-confidence because you simply find your way around better over time. You get better at making decisions and reading situations through experience. My litter has also improved a lot and I am now concentrating more on my strengths, for example in low post, than trying to be a pure all-rounder.
SPOX: So the greatest progress was on the mental level?
Barthel: Correct, the mental strength decides. I’ve always been a pretty well-trained player, but I think at a certain level you can only take bigger steps mentally. It is important to acquire the skills in the first place, but many improvements are then a matter of the mind.
SPOX: What have you been working on this summer?
Barthel: In principle, I continued as I did last year, that is, I worked on my strengths and tried to turn a few adjusting screws. For example, I want to make my throw more stable and accelerate the movement, I want to get rid of the ball faster. I focused on my outside-game and worked on my first step to make it even more powerful. These were the focal points this summer.
SPOX: The EuroLeague does not exactly reduce the burden. What do you expect in this respect?
Barthel: We already had an extremely large number of games with the EuroCup last season, but now there will certainly be another five or six, we don’t know exactly yet, even with the new cup format. The burden is getting very high, for many of us the EuroLeague is a new experience, also for me. It’s good that we have some EuroLeague veterans like Petteri Koponen with us, who already know how it can go, and I’m curious how the rest of us will master it. But the anticipation prevails that we can now compete week after week with the best teams in Europe.
Page 1: Danilo Barthel on the past season and the EuroLeague
Page 2: Danilo Barthel on his goals with the national team and the NBA