Alba Berlin has won five of the six German titles in the past three years, three championships and two cups.
Sporting director Himar Ojeda has kept international Maodo Lo's team together despite interest from the competition in some key players;
only Oscar da Silva has moved to FC Barcelona.
The Alba women, just promoted to the Bundesliga, have strengthened Ojeda with five new signings.
So everything is fine with the largest and strongest basketball club in Germany?
Michael Reinsch
Correspondent for sports in Berlin.
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The ambition of the opponents to finally defeat Alba in the fight for the title honors the Berliners;
Bayern Munich is completely reorganizing its team with outstanding players.
As manager Marco Baldi says, Alba is starting the new season with a few question marks.
Alba has to find a new venue
The corona wave of autumn is approaching, inflation makes the calculation difficult.
The new shirt sponsor, the online used car dealer Cazoo, has given up its expansion plans for Europe at short notice and is withdrawing to the British home market.
The lessor of the Mercedes-Benz Arena with its 14,000 seats, the Anschutz Group from the United States, no longer finds the tenant as attractive as it did 13 years ago.
Alba does not break the attendance record in each of its more than forty home games.
The Berlin Senate had to moderate the negotiations for the new season.
Alba is asked to find a new venue over the next few years.
And then there are the irritating international customs.
Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, the heavyweights of the Euroleague, have budgets of around 44 million euros.
Baldi has to make do with a quarter of that.
He points out that Barcelona made a loss of 30 million last season and Real amassed a hundred million lousy in four years.
Since it is to be expected for a while that clubs that spend more money than the Berliners will poach the most talented players, and teams from the NBA in America as well, Alba binds its talents in the long term.
For da Silva there was therefore a six-digit transfer fee.
Alba has recently even signed professionals who are not yet ready for the game in Berlin.
The 23-year-old Croatian center Kresimir Nikic will play in Bayreuth after a three-year contract extension with Alba.
At the season opener of the league this Wednesday in Berlin (7 p.m. on MagentaTV), 21-year-old Slovenian Ziga Samar will play for the Hamburg Towers – with a four-year contract from Alba.