US sports compact: Victory for the Wagner brothers – Kleber wins German duel

His brother Moritz Wagner, who is four years older, also showed a strong performance coming from the Magic bench. In 16 minutes, the World Cup champion recorded eleven points, two rebounds and one assist. Thanks to the fourth win from the last five games, Orlando is seventh in the Eastern Conference and is still in the race for a direct play-off place.

Maximilian Kleber also celebrated success in the German duel with Isaiah Hartenstein. With the Dallas Mavericks, the 32-year-old defeated the New York Knicks 122:108. Kleber started as a center, but only contributed two points, four rebounds and three assists in 27 minutes of play. The most successful Mavs player was once again the Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic, who narrowly missed a triple-double (39 points, eight rebounds, eleven assists).

Hartenstein also started as a center, but had to leave the field in the second quarter due to pain in his left Achilles tendon. By then, the Knicks professional had once again put in a strong performance – with ten points, four rebounds and two assists in just under 15 minutes.

For New York, who had been in good form for weeks, it was the second defeat in the last three games. Dallas, on the other hand, won for the third time in a row and, as eighth in the table, is still within striking distance of the direct play-off places in the West.

The Brooklyn Nets, the new team of national team captain Dennis Schröder, lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers 95:118. The Nets had signed Schröder in a trade from the Toronto Raptors a few hours earlier. The change period in the NBA ended on Thursday.

Basketball world champion Dennis Schröder was surprised in his sleep by his move to the Brooklyn Nets. “My agent called me a few times. I woke up and he told me I was going to Brooklyn,” the 30-year-old said during his introduction to his new franchise.

After a good six months with the Toronto Raptors, the team from New York is now Schröder's seventh stop in North America. “It's a big city. I come from Braunschweig in Germany with only 250,000 inhabitants, a small town,” said Schröder with a smile: “I am a family man and am always with my children, my wife and my loved ones. Of course the traffic will hurt a little.”

Schröder added that he can hardly wait to “get to know everyone in the locker room and in this organization and start working.” “I think we have a lot of talent in the team. I want to give everything every single day and win the games.”

Schröder followed his new team's 95:118 defeat against the Cleveland Cavaliers on site. The change period in the NBA ended on Thursday.

The Los Angeles Lakers have unveiled the first of three planned statues honoring late basketball icon Kobe Bryant. It shows the former NBA top star after his 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors in 2006. Numerous Lakers luminaries were on site at the launch.

A quote from Bryant is immortalized on the base of the statue, which is almost six meters high and weighs 1,814 kilograms: “Leave the game better than you found it. And when it’s time for you to go, leave a legend.”

Bryant crashed a helicopter with his daughter Gianna Bryant and seven other people on January 26, 2020 in Calabasas, California and died.

“When I found out that there would be three statues, I just said: That's fitting,” said Rob Pelinka, Bryant's long-time friend and agent and current general manager of the Lakers: “Because that's exactly how the City of Angels feels about Kobe. He deserves something that no other athlete who has ever played here has.