The NBA star who surrenders to Aíto García Reneses: the important life lesson he taught him

The teacher Aito García Reneses He has taught many basketball and life lessons in his extensive career between the boards. The renowned coach has built his career on the bench in Europe, but his teaching and influence reaches the NBA.

Franz Wagner, Today, a true NBA star who leads the Orlando Magic, he was under the orders of Aíto at Alba Berlin between 2017 and 2019. Then, Franz – a player born in 2001 – was a teenager who listened carefully to everything the former coach of Barça and Joventut inter alia.

“There were many things he did,” highlights the current forward 25 years, who always highlights how much he learned from the current Spanish coach 79 years both on and off the track. Although there is a specific life lesson that he keeps in mind.

“There is one thing that he always asked no matter which city we went to. When we got to a city he asked, and especially to the young kids, about what that city was known for and he made us look up the history a little. He always wanted us to think about other things apart from basketball, and that sums him up very well,” Wagner explained to MD on the recent visit of the Orlando Magic to Toronto.

The German was asked for an anecdote that defined Aíto’s personality, highlighting a teaching as a person that at the same time benefited him and continues to benefit him as a basketball player. And Franz recognizes that he continues to put the famous coach’s advice into practice.

“Anything from Aíto that I learned and am putting into practice in the NBA? I would say what I just said, that to have a long and successful career it is important to put your mind on other things as well to be fresh when the game starts,” highlighted Wagner, who after a two-year stint in the NCAA in the Michigan Wolverines He was drafted 8th by the Magic in 2021. The 2.08 forward from Berlin is now in his sixth season in the NBA.

Franz Wagner is now back under the command of another Spanish coach, Alex Mumbrú, Germany coach. The forward is now also seeing first-hand with Mumbrú the level of the Spanish coaching school because what the Catalan did with the German team was to arrive and kiss the saint with the 2025 Eurobasket gold.

In fact, Mumbrú was a disciple of maestro Aíto as a player in the Spanish team and is even the coach who has had the most impact on him, according to what he said in conversation with Las Provincias. So it is normal for Wagner to find similarities between them. The Orlando star also spoke about the similarities between Aíto and Mumbrú.

“There is definitely a Spanish way of playing basketball, of teaching it too, so they both have that. Apart from that, they are obviously very different people, so each one does it in their own way. But there is definitely a certain way of how Spanish basketball is played,” the forward reflected. The former Orlando coach, Jamahl Mosley -in the Pelicans-, he acknowledged that he learns from Mumbrú’s concepts.

Aíto’s time with the Spanish team was brief but intense with that silver medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 which was almost gold in that memorable final against Team USA’s Dream Team 2.0 with Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwight Howard and company.

The following summer, 2009, another former Joventut player like Jordi Fernandez He began his NBA career with the Cleveland Cavaliers and today is head coach of the Brooklyn Nets, where he has Moritz Wagner, Franz’s brother, among his pupils. The NBA learns from the Spanish school, from younger coaches like Jordi Fernández (1982) and Alex Mumbrú (1979), but also from illustrious ones like Pedro Martinez (1961) and, of course, the teacher Aíto García Reneses (1946).