NBA champion Isaiah Hartenstein has committed to the mission of defending the title for the basketball world champions. “I want to play in the 2027 World Cup. I also told national coach Álex Mumbrú, who visited me in Oklahoma last season. I feel physically fit, my contract situation in the NBA is also settled. I now want to play as much as possible for Germany. Also at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The timing is now perfect,” Hartenstein told Sport Bild.
When the German national team won gold at the 2023 World Cup and most recently at the European Championships in Riga, the professional from the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder was missing.
Originally, the 27-year-old wanted to play in the European Championship, but after the exhausting NBA finals series against the Indiana Pacers, he dropped out due to Achilles tendon problems. His last international match to date was in 2018. At the World Cup in Qatar in two years, he is now set to make his comeback.
“Now we are the hunted”
However, before that, a successful title defense in the NBA should be achieved. When the league starts next week, OKC will once again enter the race as the top favorite.
Hartenstein warned, however: “We are starting from scratch again. That was also the first thing our coach Mark Daigneault said to us at the start of training. Now we are the hunted. Everyone wants to beat the reigning champion. But we have a lot of self-confidence and are just as hungry as we were a year ago.”