Dennis Schroder has issued an apology to Maxi Kleber after calling him out for not participating in last year's Eurobasket with the German national team.
The Toronto Raptors point guard's mea culpa came via the German Basketball Federation, which attempted to squash the roiling beef between Schroder and Kleber by publicly calling for “the end of the matter” after the former met with German coach Gordon Herbert.
“I would like to apologize to Maxi Kleber and his family for my statements and the resulting inconvenience,” Schroder said in the statement. “It was never my intention to bring someone into an unpleasant situation or unrest in the team. My intention was just to make myself strong for my team and to make it clear that I would do everything for my team.”
Schroder went on to clarify that he was simply speaking his mind while criticizing Maxi for opting out of Eurobasket 2022, not intentionally attacking his fellow countryman.
Kleber withdrew from the 2023 FIBA World Cup in wake of Schroder's inflammatory initial comments, which came on the latest edition of the Got Nexxt podcast.
“If he says ‘I will sign my contract this summer and I want to be with the team so that I can earn even more money', then I understand that,” Schroder said of Kleber's justification for skipping Eurobasket 2022. “But if you say to [national team coach] Gordon Herbert, ‘I'm Maxi and I want to train ball handling and work on my game in the summer,' then, sorry Maxi, but you don't have a game.
“For me it's like, ‘Maxi, working on your game? You can't play in the NT for that?'” he continued. “That bothered me a little bit, to be honest.”
While the German Basketball Federation is clearly working to move past the completely avoidable controversy, there's no fixing the damage already done. Kleber's withdrawal from the World Cup is irrevocable, leaving the Germans absent arguably their best big man.
Germany, led by Dennis Schroder and rising star Franz Wagner of the Orlando Magic, tipoff World Cup play against Japan on August 25th in Okinawa.
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