Rockets (basketball club)

BiG Rockets Gotha
Founded	2 July 1998;27 years ago (1998-07-02)
Arena	Turnhalle KGS Gotha
Capacity	500
Location	Gotha, Germany
Team colors	Blue, White
President	Andy Dittmar
Head coach	Kemal Velishaev
Championships	1 ProB
Website	www.big-gotha.de
Home Away

Rockets is a German professional basketball team. It is originally based in Gotha, Germany, but plays its home games in Erfurt. The Rockets is the first team of the BiG Gotha basketball club.

In 2017, Rockets promoted to the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL), the German first tier. Following its debut season in the BBL, the professional team of Rockets was dissolved. ^[1] Since 2018-19 season the team plays in the 2nd Regional League under the name BiG Rockets Gotha. On April 12, 2025 the team became champion of the 2nd Regional League and got promoted to the 4th tier 1st Regional League.

History

Oettinger Rockets home game in 2017

Retin Obasohan

The Oettinger Rockets were found as the first team of the club Gotha e.V. which was founded on 2 July 1998. The team started in the Bezirksliga and promoted to the fourth tier 1.Regionliga in 2005.

In the 2009–10 season, the Rockets was promoted to the national third level, the ProB. ^[2] In the 2011–12 season, Gotha was crowned ProB champions and the team was promoted to the second tier level ProA. ^[3]

Since the 2016–17 season, the Rockets play in the Messe Erfurt, which has a capacity of 3,236 people. ^[4] On 3 May 2017, the team earned promotion to the Basketball Bundesliga by beating Niners Chemnitz in the semi-finals of the ProA to claim a promotion spot. ^{[5] [6]}

Rockets Gotha started the 2017–18 season as "Oettinger Rockets", named after its main sponsor Oettinger Brauerei. However, from January 2018 the main sponsor left and the club would be simply known as "Rockets". ^[7] In its debut season in the BBL, Rockets ended in the 17th place and relegated back to the ProA. In July 2018, the organization announced that it was not able to play in the professional ProA league. ^[1]

The same year the second team of Rockets managed to win the 1. Regional League South-East and promoted to the ProB. Due to loss of the main sponsor Oettinger Brauerei the team decided to sell their ProB licence to Basketball Löwen Erfurt and continue to compete in the 2nd Regional League under the name of BiG (Basketball in Gotha) Rockets Gotha.

Honours

• ProB

Winners: 2011–12

Players

Current roster

BiG Rockets Gotha roster
Players	Coaches
Pos. No. Nat. Name Ht. Age PG 5 Deubner, Franz PF 6 Schiller, Lorenz 2.01 m (6 ft 7 in) 25 – (2000-04-05)5 April 2000 F 6 Lenz, William Valentin 1.94 m (6 ft 4 in) 21 – (2004-02-20)20 February 2004 F/C 7 Enders, Jonas C 8 Keßler, Simon F 9 Pleta, Dominykas 2.02 m (6 ft 8 in) 20 – (2004-10-06)6 October 2004 SF 10 Hüller, Magnus 1.96 m (6 ft 5 in) 23 – (2002-01-07)7 January 2002 PF 12 Franklin, Robert 1.96 m (6 ft 5 in) 44 – (1981-01-20)20 January 1981 F 13 Rösler, Tom 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) 21 – (2003-11-22)22 November 2003 PF 13 Lechler, Adrian 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) 23 – (2002-07-01)1 July 2002 C 14 Jäschke, Maximilian PG 15 Arpasi, Moritz 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) 21 – (2004-03-24)24 March 2004 SG 17 Kancír, Peter SG 47 Wolter, Nils	Head coach Vacant Assistant coach(es) Jannek Fritzschek Legend (C) Team captain (DP) Development player Injured Roster Updated: 4 October 2020

Notable players

Note: Flags indicate national team eligibility at FIBA-sanctioned events. Players may hold other non-FIBA nationalities not displayed.

Criteria
To appear in this section a player must have either: Set a club record or won an individual award while at the club Played at least one official international match for their national team at any time Played at least one official NBA match at any time.

• Konstantin Klein
• Andreas Obst
• Ekenechukwu Ibekwe
• Nemanja Jaramaz
• David Hicks
• Darrel Mitchell
• Marcus Monk
• Travis Warech

Head coaches

Period	Coach
2003–2007	Peter Krautwald
2007–2009	Alexander Uth
2009–12/2009	Dainius Pleta
12/2009–2010	Mike Smith
2010–2011	Alexander Chartschenkow
2011–11/2012	Marko Simić
12/2012–2013	Christoph Nicol
2013–2017	Chris Ensminger
2017–2018	Ivan Pavić
2018–10/2019	Valentino Lott
10/2019–11/2019	Ronny Schönau/Peter Krautwald
11/2019–03/2020	Iria Uxía Romarís Durán
09/2020	Kemal Velishaev

Season by season

Season	Tier	League	Pos.
2010–11	3	ProB	9th
2011–12	3	ProB	1st
2012–13	2	ProA	14th
2013–14	2	ProA	7th
2014–15	2	ProA	4th
2015–16	2	ProA	3rd
2016–17	2	ProA	2nd
2017–18	1	BBL	17th
2018-19	5	2nd Regional League	7th
2019-20	5	2nd Regional League	8th
2020-21	5	2nd Regional League	-
2021-22	5	2nd Regional League	10th
2022-23	5	2nd Regional League	5th
2023-24	5	2nd Regional League	2nd
2024-25	5	2nd Regional League	1st

Source: Eurobasket.com

Sponsorship names

The logo of the Oettinger Rockets

Due to sponsorship reasons, the team has been known as:

• Oettinger Rockets (2006–2017)

References

1. "Gotha | Erfurt: Aus für Profi-Basketball bei den Rockets | MDR.DE". www.mdr.de. Archived from the original on 2018-07-02.
2. Peter Sack. "BiG - Basketball in Gotha: Rockets starten in der Pro B Süd" (in German). Retrieved 2017-03-07.
3. Peter Sack. "BiG - Basketball in Gotha: Rockets weiter in der ProB" (in German). Retrieved 2017-03-07.
4. Peter Sack. "BiG - Basketball in Gotha: Rockets spielen nächste Saison in der Messe Erfurt". www.big-gotha.de. Retrieved 2016-12-11.
5. "Unfassbare Aufholjagd: Rockets siegen und steigen in die Bundesliga auf". 2017-05-03.
6. "Oettinger Rockets zweiter Aufsteiger in die easyCredit BBL". zweite-basketball-bundesliga.de. 2017-05-03. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
7. "Thüringer Bundesliga-Basketballer gehen letztmals als "Oettinger Rockets" auf Korbjagd" (in German). Thueringer-allgemeine.de. 30 December 2017. Retrieved 9 January 2018.

External links

• Rockets Gotha official website (in German)
• BiG Gotha official website (in German)