A few weeks ago, Himar Ojeda was asked about rumors that Bayern Munich wanted to sign Berlin basketball professional Oscar da Silva.
He couldn't imagine that, replied Alba's sporting director.
If da Silva wants to develop further in terms of play, he will stay with Alba and only change as soon as he receives an offer from the NBA.
But if he wants to earn a lot of money, he should not switch to Bayern, but to Galatasaray Istanbul or to Real or Barcelona in Spain.
Michael Reinsch
Correspondent for sports in Berlin.
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As if da Silva had been standing in the hallway of the Alba training hall in Berlin-Mitte - he was actually training with the team - reports from Spain are now increasing that the player born in 1998 has agreed on a transfer with Barcelona.
The 2.06 meter long athlete, who impressed in his first season as a professional in both the Bundesliga and the Euroleague with the security with which he acts under the basket, will probably make his last appearance this Friday (7 p.m. at MagentaSport). have for Alba.
He and his team will play the third game of the playoff series for the German championship against Bayern Munich.
Judging by the outcome of the first two games, da Silva will retire as German champions to join Sarunas Jasikevicius' team next season alongside Nick Calathes and Nikola Mirotic, two of Europe's highest-paid players.
Barcelona is a good place for German players.
Twenty years ago, when Oscar da Silva was three years old, the 2.15 meter long Patrick Femerling moved to the city.
He succeeded the recently deceased Ademola Okulaja, who had played there for a year, and won the Euroleague with Barcelona in 2013.
In 2014, Tibor Pleiss, now two times champion of the Euroleague with Anadolu Istanbul, moved to Barcelona for two years.
The goal, even if it should go to Spain, is America.
"Not being drafted into the NBA wasn't a setback, but it felt like a setback," says da Silva.
“I was a bit taken a bit, to be honest.” Instead of playing for Oklahoma City in the Summer League, the native of Munich went to Ludwigsburg in the Bundesliga in 2021.
At the beginning of the new season he made use of his exit clause because Alba called.
Da Silva, son of a Brazilian from São Paulo and an Allgäu woman from Marktoberdorf, follows the highest standards.
At the age of sixteen, when he was playing for MTSV Schwabing, the idea of moving to the USA after graduating from high school was born.
"If I go to college, I want it to be academically rewarding." Da Silva passed Stanford's academic entrance exam and majored in biochemistry.
The prestige and status of the number one American higher education institution is appreciated by Alba's number one.
"Stanford and the sport at this high level, that's unique," he says of the university with 17,000 students, which has produced 85 Nobel Prize winners.
The next degree is to follow the basketball career.
Then it should be about business.
"Working as a researcher in a laboratory is not my calling," he says.
Da Silva reads the journal Nature and has many investors ahead of him in knowing what messenger RNA is, the core of the new generation of vaccines and the basis of Biontech's sensational profits.
The academic education in America outweighs the sporting disadvantages of the college years for the athlete.
"I saw that staying there limited development a little," he says: "It was the classic: I was on the outside as well as inside before I went to America.
There I slipped more and more towards the center.
My speed and size were then used more to play inside than outside.”
The advantage: calmness and speed of action under the basket.
The bottom line is that the athletically not really demanding university league was right for the development.
"It's important to get playing time at that age.
When you're out of the youth basketball league here, it's still a bit too early to go pro," he says: "I haven't been on the bench for the past four years, I've got a degree and I'm on the same level , where I belong."
Next stop NBA?
"I'm not at the end of my playful development at 23," says da Silva and looks at the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics: "When I see Maxi Kleber and Daniel Theis: That's a path I want to go too." Like that there are two Wagners from Berlin, Moritz and Franz, who both play for Orlando in the NBA, there are two da Silvas: Tristan, two years younger than Oscar, 2.02 meters long, plays for the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Is he, like the Wagners, the more talented?
“It really is,” replies Oscar. “The younger brothers have to play the older ones one-on-one on the open court.
Maybe that's why.” He hasn't yet made Tristan aware of his Alba club, which will have to do without the Wagners and probably also without da Silva: “He'll have to work for it himself.” Like his big brother.