Rockets is a German professional basketball team. It is originally based in

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the Gotha (district), district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine House of Wet ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

but plays its home games in

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

. The Rockets are 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. Since 2018-19 season the team plays in the 2. Regional League under the name BiG Rockets Gotha.

History

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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 were promoted to the national third level, the

ProB The ProB is the third-tier level league of professional club basketball in Germany. The league comprises 24 teams, separated into a Northern and a Southern Division. Officially, the ProB is part of the '' 2. Basketball Bundesliga'', which con ...

. In the 2011–12 season, Gotha was crowned ProB champions and the team was promoted to the second tier level

ProA Proas are various types of multi-hull outrigger sailboats of the Austronesian peoples. The terms were used for native Austronesian ships in European records during the Colonial era indiscriminately, and thus can confusingly refer to the ...

. Since the 2016–17 season, the Rockets play in the

Messe Erfurt The Messe Erfurt is a convention center including an indoor arena, in Erfurt, Germany. Its seating capacity is roughly 12,000 people. The arena has hosted concerts by many famous artists, spanning many different genres. It serves as home arena fo ...

, which has a capacity of 3,236 people. On 3 May 2017 the team earned promotion to the Basketball Bundesliga by beating

Niners Chemnitz Niners Chemnitz e.V., also named Chemnitz 99, is a German basketball club based in Chemnitz, Saxony. Currently, the team plays in the Basketball Bundesliga. Since its foundation, the team has played in Germany's lower divisions but moved up se ...

in the semi-finals of the ProA to claim a promotion spot. 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". 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. The same year the second team of Rockets managed to win the 1. Regional League South-East and promote to the

. 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.

Honours

:Winners: 2011–12

Players

Notable players

* Konstantin Klein *

Andreas Obst Andreas Obst (born 13 July 1996) is a German professional basketball player for Bayern Munich of the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) and the EuroLeague. Professional career On 14 June 2016 Obst was sent on loan to Gießen 46ers by Brose Bamberg. On ...

* Ekenechukwu Ibekwe * Nemanja Jaramaz *

David Hicks David Matthew Hicks (born 7 August 1975) is an Australian who attended al-Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, and met with Osama bin Laden during 2001. He was then detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay detention camp fro ...

Darrel Mitchell Darrel Joseph Mitchell Jr. (born May 3, 1984) is an American former professional basketball player. He played high school basketball at St. Martinville Senior High School in St. Martinville, Louisiana, and was named Louisiana Mr. Basketball as ...

* Marcus Monk *

Travis Warech Travis Warech (טרוויס ווריק; born July 5, 1991) is an American-German-Israeli professional basketball player who last played for Hapoel Tel Aviv of the Israeli Basketball Premier League. He played college basketball for Saint Michael' ...

Current roster

Head coaches

Season by season

Source
Eurobasket.com
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Sponsorship names

Due to sponsorship reasons, the team has been known as: * Oettinger Rockets (2006–2017)

References

External links

Rockets Gotha official website

BiG Gotha official website
{{in lang, de Basketball teams in Germany Basketball teams established in 1998 Gotha Sport in Erfurt