Es war das übliche Prozedere, auf das ein Basketballer in der nordamerikanischen Profiliga NBA keinen Einfluss hat und auf das derjenige, den es trifft, gewöhnlich mit einer riesigen Portion Fatalismus reagiert. Und es ging schnell: Am Samstag sickerten erste glaubhafte Gerüchte durch. Am Sonntag kam die offizielle Bestätigung in den sozialen Medien. Und wenig später noch ein paar forsche Sätze aus dem Mund des Trainers. Steve Kerr hatte dem neuen Mann in einem Anruf kurz zuvor verraten, wie sehr er ihn in seinem Kader haben wollte.
“I told Dennis today that he has already kicked my ass on three different continents,” the Golden State Warriors coach revealed before the game against the Dallas Mavericks with an air of admiration and respect. “He is a fighter” and a player who produces positive effects in both attack and defense.
Already the eighth employer in the NBA
The move as part of a classic NBA player swap should not upset Schröder. He has had to move from one day to the next to another city more than 4,000 kilometers away and adapt to the new environment several times.
The Golden State Warriors are his eighth employer in North America after the Atlanta Hawks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets, Toronto Raptors and most recently the Brooklyn Nets. Life in a water heater, now with a family and three children, has become the quintessence of his professional existence. A job that has so far earned him around 100 million dollars (around 95 million euros) gross.
He shares this fate with hundreds of basketball professionals in the USA, is on the table of players who have been passed around most often, the so-called “Journeyman”, but with his CV only in the upper midfield. The record is held by American Ish Smith, who was under contract with thirteen different teams and ended his career a few months ago. In 2023, during his tour d'horizon with a stopover at the Denver Nuggets, he achieved something that Schröder had not yet achieved: winning the NBA championship.
