Max Merz

Max Merz
Player information
Full name	Max Christopher Merz
birthday	February 1, 1994
place of birth	Regensburg, Germany
size	183 cm
position	Point guard
Club information
society	Fraport Skyliners
league	Basketball Bundesliga
Jersey number	10
Clubs as active
Until 002009 MTV Kronberg (youth) Since 2009 Skyliners Frankfurt 2009–2013 → Eintracht Frankfurt ( NBBL ) 00

Max Christopher Merz (born February 1, 1994 in Regensburg ) is a German basketball player . In 2009 Merz moved from his parent club in Kronberg im Taunus to the junior program of the German first division club Skyliners from Frankfurt am Main . There the youth national player initially played predominantly in the U19 team of the cooperation partner Eintracht Frankfurt in the youth basketball league (NBBL), in which he made his debut at the age of 15 years before the time, as well as in the second team of the Skyliners club Juniors in the third highest men's division ProB . At the end of the 2014/15 season , the banking student returned to the top division squad prematurely during a semester abroad, partly because his younger brother Jakob Merz had to end his desired professional career prematurely.

Career

After moving from MTV Kronberg, a former men's second division team, to Frankfurt am Main in 2009 to the Skyliners and Eintracht, their cooperation partners in the youth and amateur field, Max Merz made his debut in the youth basketball division at the age of 15. Bundesliga (NBBL) for Eintracht. In the Under-16 European Championship finals in 2010 reached Merz with the cadet national team of DBB relegation in 13th place. Then Merz was for a school year at the Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in Rabun County ( Georgia ) in the United States . After his return, it was not enough for Merz with the NBBL team of Eintracht in the following years for a qualification for the TOP4 final tournament of the highest German junior division. In the Skyliners, after first games with the men of Eintracht in the regional league from the ProB 2011/12 , Merz was also used in the second men's team Skyliners Juniors in the third-highest division, in which you play against the offspring of the first division competitor Alba Berlin in Play-downs could ensure relegation. In the following ProB 2012/13 , the “ farm team ” of the first division team reached the play-off for promotion, in which they were eliminated in the first round against SC Rist Wedel .

In the basketball Bundesliga 2012/13 Merz had his first three appearances with the Skyliners in the top men's division. He then signed a four-year contract with the Skyliners before reaching eleventh place in the U20 European Championship finals with the national junior team, which had achieved historically good results with fifth place in the previous two years. After graduating from high school, Merz began a management course at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and was regularly used by trainer Gordon Herbert for almost ten minutes per game in the 2013/14 basketball Bundesliga . With a double license , he also continued to play for the farm team in the ProB 2013/14 , in which he was one of the game-determining players with an average of just under 13 points and 5 basket assists per game. While the Skyliners men initially failed to make it into the play-offs for the German championship, Merz was eliminated with the juniors in the play-offs for promotion again in the first round. At the U20 European Championship finals in 2014, Merz achieved relegation in Division A with the junior selection in 14th place, but missed an improvement in the result, while his brother Jakob won Division B with the youth national team and returned to the circle of best selection teams in Division A. In the 2014/15 season, at the end of the year, Max Merz started his semester abroad, which is mandatory for his internationally oriented studies, and passed his management position to his younger brother Jakob, among others. After his brother left and Konstantin Klein was injured again , Max Merz came back to Frankfurt during his trimester vacation and was available for the Skyliners in the championship play-offs, in which, however, they were already playing against defending champions FC Bayern Munich eliminated in the first round. In 2016 he won the FIBA Europe Cup with Frankfurt .

family

Max played in the ProB 2013/14 at the Skyliners Juniors with his brother Jakob Moritz Merz (born January 26, 1997 in Bad Soden am Taunus ), who was almost three years his junior and who was also a youth national player. However, after cartilage damage in both feet, Jakob Merz had to end his professional career before he really started it; Jakob didn't play a single game in the top division for the Skyliners.

Web links

• easyCredit BBL - Max Merz - player profile on the easyCredit Basketball-Bundesliga website
• Max Merz - Overview of participation in international FIBA tournaments on archive.fiba.com (English)
• This tingling sensation in the fingers - portrait of Leon Stolle, published on March 13, 2014 on the welt.de website
• “We understand each other on the floor even without words” - Max and Jakob Merz in conversation - Double interview by Romina Eggert, published on December 27, 2013 as media information by Fraport Skyliners

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Leonhard Kazda: Multitasking under the basket A talent in constant stress. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 28, 2010, accessed on May 30, 2015 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} sid : BBL: Returning Max Merz strengthens Frankfurt Skyliners. sportal.de, April 30, 2015, accessed May 30, 2015 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Player Statistics - Max Merz. (No longer available online.) Basketball Bundesliga , archived from the original on May 30, 2015 ; accessed on May 30, 2015 (profile on statistics pages). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Talent Max Merz signs with the Skyliners for four years. (No longer available online.) Frankfurter Neue Presse , May 1, 2013, archived from the original on May 30, 2015 ; accessed on May 30, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Timur Tinç: The squad is taking shape. Frankfurter Rundschau , August 26, 2014, accessed on May 30, 2015 . 
6. ↑ archive.fiba.com: Players - Jakob Moritz MERZ (GER). FIBA , accessed on May 30, 2015 (English, profile in the archive). 
7. ↑ Jan Finken: Jakob Merz: End of the professional dream. NBBL / Sport-ID.de, January 21, 2015, accessed on May 30, 2015 (Medien-Info NBBL). 
8. ↑ Player statistics - Jakob Merz. (No longer available online.) Basketball Bundesliga , archived from the original on May 30, 2015 ; accessed on May 30, 2015 (profile on statistics pages). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.