101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
At the European Championship for Cadets in Greece in
1981, he was already part of a great generation of 1964
which would give so much to the game of basketball,
with names like Arvydas Sabonis and Valery Tikhonenko
(USSR); Drazen Petrovic, Stojko Vrankovic and Velimir
Perasovic (Yugoslavia); Jose Montero (Spain)... A
great year.
In the final, the USSR defeated Italy by 72-57 while
in the bronze medal game, Germany topped Finland
78-64. One Christian Welp scored 32 points. Against
Turkey, he bagged 28; against Sweden 24. His average
was 18.4 plus many rebounds, even if there is no data
about that number. Drazen Petrovic led the tourney
with 32.4 points per game, but Yugoslavia finished fifth,
while Germany, who until then never had any success in
youth categories, won the bronze.
One year later, at the 1982 European Championships
for Junior Men in Bulgaria, Germany managed
to have together three of its diamonds: Detlef
Schrempf, Gunther Behnke and Welp. Germany
finished fifth, but the three of them had main roles.
Schrempf averaged 18.3 points, followed by Behnke
(14.3) and Welp (13.9).
During the autumn of 1982, Welp took an important
step in his career and moved to the United States. After
high school, he went to Washington University, where
he coincided with Schrempf. The two Germans started
writing history in the country that invented basketball.
Welp finished his studies as the top scorer ever in the
college, with 2,073 points (average of 16.1) and 995 rebounds
(7.7). In 1986 he the player of the year in the Pacific
10 conference of the NCAA. Nobody was surprised
when he was chosen number 16 in the 1987 draft by
Philadelphia. He was to be the complement to Charles
Barkley.
However, that December, after only 10 games, he
suffered a serious knee injury when his NBA career was
just starting. He slipped on the wet floor, which was
over an ice rink. He was back for the 1988-89 season,
as a bench player, and averaged 3.4 points and 2.7
rebounds. Pesic is convinced that Welp never fully recovered
from that injury, despite having accomplished
good things after that.
After two years with the 76ers, he played one season
with the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State
Warriors. After 109 games in the NBA averaging 3.3
points and 2.4 rebounds, he decided to travel back to
Europe. He signed for Bayer Leverkusen of his native
Germany, and by then, the best team in the country. He
stayed there for six seasons winning as many league
titles.
Triumph in Rome
For the 1996-97 season, Dusan Ivkovic was the head
coach at Olympiacos Piraeus and was looking for a tall
player who could help Panagiotis Fasoulas and Dragan
Tarlac. He signed Welp, who met expectations. When
Olympiacos reached the Rome Final Four, Welp was 33
years old. He only played 17.8 minutes per game but
contributed what was expected of him: experience plus
6.2 points and 3.5 rebounds. In semis, the Reds defeated
Olimpija Ljubljana by 74-65, and in the title game,
they beat FC Barcelona by 73-58 behind the great David
Rivers, who scored 26 points.
With his mission accomplished in Greece – where
he won the triple crown with the Euroleague, the Greek
League and the Greek Cup – Welp returned to Germany,
but this time to ALBA Berlin, where coach Pesic awaited
him with open arms. In the 1997-98 season, ALBA
reached the quarterfinals of the EuroLeague but fell to
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