Rockets (basketball club)

BiG Rockets Gotha
Founded	2 July 1998; 26 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 2. Regional League under the name BiG Rockets Gotha.

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 2. Regional League under the name of BiG (Basketball in Gotha) Rockets Gotha.

• ProB

Winners: 2011–12

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) 24 – (2000-04-05)5 April 2000 F 6 Lenz, William Valentin 1.94 m (6 ft 4 in) 20 – (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) 22 – (2002-01-07)7 January 2002 PF 12 Franklin, Robert 1.96 m (6 ft 5 in) 43 – (1981-01-20)20 January 1981 F 13 Rösler, Tom 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) 20 – (2003-11-22)22 November 2003 PF 13 Lechler, Adrian 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) 22 – (2002-07-01)1 July 2002 C 14 Jäschke, Maximilian PG 15 Arpasi, Moritz 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) 20 – (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

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

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

Source: Eurobasket.com

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

• Oettinger Rockets (2006–2017)

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