Isaiah Hartenstein - German NBA star aims for title

"It would be an honor to win the title and to do it for Germany," said Isaiah Hartenstein, referring to his club, the Oklahoma City Thunder,'s NBA Finals series against the Indiana Pacers. It will be played in a best-of-seven format: The first team to win four games wins the championship in the world's best basketball league.

Hartenstein has the chance to become the second German after Dirk Nowitzki to triumph in the North American professional NBA league. Maxi Kleber reached the Finals with the Dallas Mavericks last season, losing to the Boston Celtics; two years earlier, Daniel Theis and the Celtics lost to the Golden State Warriors . Kleber and Theis played only supporting roles on their teams. Hartenstein is different.

He usually starts at center for the Oklahoma City Thunder and has been a key factor in this successful season, making OKC the clear favorite against the Pacers. "The greatest strength of this team is that we do everything together. We support each other, regardless of whether you play a lot or a little," Hartenstein said of his team's recipe for success.

Hartenstein wants to play for Germany at the 2028 Olympics in LA

"For me, the NBA will always be number one," Hartenstein regularly says when asked about his future with the national team. Because of this attitude, he missed out on German basketball's major successes in recent years: bronze at the 2022 European Championship , the sensational gold at the 2023 World Championship , and fourth place at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Gordon Herbert , the man responsible for this, the national coach from 2021 to 2024, had made it clear from the outset that he would only consider players who had confirmed their participation in the national team. Thus, Hartenstein fell through Herbert's radar. He played the last of his 19 international matches in 2018.

He's always open to the national team, Hartenstein said in an April interview with the newspaper "Sport Bild": "I definitely want to play at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. At this year's European Championship and the 2027 World Cup, we'll have to see how far we get in the playoffs and how my body feels." He then added his standard line: "The NBA always comes first for me."

Father trained son

Hartenstein was born on May 5, 1998, in Eugene, Oregon, to a German father and an American mother. He has dual citizenship, so theoretically he could have played for the USA . He chose Germany —the country where he matured as a basketball player.

When he was eleven, his family moved from the USA to Giessen, where his father, Florian Hartenstein, was a professional basketball player and where Isaiah also began playing basketball. "Even back then, he wanted to play in the NBA and communicated that. It was his dream," Isaiah's youth coach at the time, Stephan Röll, recalled in an interview with DW. Hartenstein's ambition was also already evident: "He always worked hard , gave his all , and fought for every ball . And he was a leader on every team he played on."

This did not change when the Hartensteins moved to the small town of Quakenbrück in Lower Saxony, where the father signed a contract with the Bundesliga club Artland Dragons and later worked as a coach in the club, initially in the youth sector.

There, he also coached his son Isaiah for three years, who grew to a height of 2.13 meters. "I put him at guard as a tall man so he could work more on dribbling and passing," Florian Hartenstein recalled in an interview with the online platform The Undefeated. "I think that helped him become more versatile later on."

Allergic to racist sayings

Many initially didn't believe the two were father and son. The reason: Florian Hartenstein's darker skin color, whose father is African American and his mother is German.

"I know I'm half-Black. But you can't really tell by the color of my skin," Isaiah Hartenstein told The Undefeated. "Sometimes people laugh and say, 'That's not possible.' And then they take a good look at my dad and say something like, 'Okay, we get it.'"

The NBA star reacts allergically to racist remarks: "I make it clear to them that what they're saying isn't right," says Hartenstein. "Even if I weren't part Black, it's not right. It's not about skin color. It's about your personality. About what's inside you."

Annual earnings 27 million euros

At the age of 16, Isaiah Hartenstein played his first Bundesliga game for the Artland Dragons. In 2016, he moved to top Lithuanian club Zalgiris Kaunus. One year later, he declared for the NBA draft and was selected 43rd overall by the Houston Rockets.

After a year of training at a so-called "farm club" of the NBA club, Hartenstein made his league debut for Houston in October 2018.

Further NBA stints followed with the Denver Nuggets, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Los Angeles Clippers, and the New York Knicks before he signed a three-year contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder (OKC) in 2024. With an annual income equivalent to around 27 million euros, Hartenstein is one of the highest-earning German athletes.

He has a large image of Jesus tattooed on his right arm. "My faith is very important to me and gives me a lot of strength," Hartenstein told "Sport Bild." Not only in tough times, but also in the good times: "When I was at the top and signed my contract with OKC, my faith helped me stay grounded."

In mid-2023, the basketball star married US model and influencer Kourtney Kellar, and a year later, their son Elijah was born. "For me, family comes first," emphasizes Isaiah Hartenstein. Even before the NBA.

The article has been updated several times, most recently on May 4, 2025. In addition, the DW interview with Hartenstein's youth coach has been subsequently incorporated.