Maodo Lô: « This is a great period for German basketball »

Maodo Lô (1.91m, 32 years old) won a second gold medal with the German national team by beating Turkey 88-83 in the final. After winning the 2023 World Cup, the former Paris Basketball player just secured gold at EuroBasket 2025.

Quiet in the final (2 points, 1 rebound and 1 assist in 15 minutes) but essential as a backup to tournament MVP Dennis Schroder throughout the competition (7.9 points, 2.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists), the future Zalgiris Kaunas point guard reflected on this new achievement for German basketball.

World Champion, European Champion… How do you feel?

We just made plays at the end… Dennis hit big shots, Isaac (Bonga) made those 3-pointers. We kept playing, that’s just what we needed to do. We won the game. Turkey played well, but we executed our plays at the end of the game.

« We are friends who play basketball together »

This is your third medal in three years with the national team. Can you compare them?

Like I said, I think this is a great period for German basketball. We won bronze in 2022. I think we could have done better in that tournament… I think we should have played for gold in 2022, when we lost to Spain (in semifinals). But it was our first medal, which gave us momentum. Then we won the World Championship. And now we have EuroBasket. It’s really enjoyable to be part of this team, this group, this generation of German players. These are memories that will stay in German basketball history. We share many memories, there’s continuity… We are friends who play basketball together. It’s nice to have success.

Speaking of your captain, your leader, Dennis, MVP of the tournament again after being World Cup MVP, can we already consider him a future FIBA Hall of Famer in your opinion?

Of course his case can be considered. To win these tournaments at European and world level with the national team is Big Time. Think about the legends who have already done this! Bringing so much success to their national team. Dennis has led us for so many years. He deserves it.

Can you tell us about his last decisive basket?

It’s a great shot, I told him right away. What a big shot it really was! It was a difficult shot, the difficulty level was huge. He was so clutch. I’m happy he made that shot for us and for himself.

You have gold at the World Cup, at EuroBasket… You still have an Olympic medal to get.

Yes, I hope we can win an Olympic medal too. Last year, we fell just short. But despite everything I think German basketball has established itself at the top now. We’re united at the top right now. It shows the level of basketball we’re playing right now, the level of quality our players have, the depth of talent, youth… There are many young talented players coming up. I’m just happy that this sport continues to grow (in Germany) and becomes more and more popular. Because basketball is a great sport, I love basketball (smiles), so winning more and more trophies for Germany (helps). I’m really happy about it.

What did you think of the level of this EuroBasket, with all these stars? Two great games to finish this Sunday…

Yes, it was a great tournament, all the stars came. You could see that the first knockout matches (round of 16) were all difficult. If you play against teams from small countries and think they’re small teams… Everyone struggled. Finland beat Serbia. France lost to Georgia. We had a tough match against Portugal. All countries are improving. Basketball is improving everywhere, in all countries.

Also, I want to add that there were many injuries at EuroBasket, and I think that’s also a signal (for organizations). The schedules during seasons with EuroLeague, FIBA, NBA… There are many games and for these tournaments to happen in summer, it’s a price to pay for the players’ bodies. It leads to many injuries. We have a deep roster, we were quite lucky to be able to compensate for our injury absences (Johannes Voigtmann and Justus Hollatz). But that’s something to keep in mind too. We players play a lot of basketball games all these years.

In Riga,