He is coming back to Munich: Anton Gavel will take over as head coach of Bayern Basketball for the upcoming season. The captain of Bayern’s 2018 double-winning team has signed a three-year contract with Germany’s only EuroLeague representative.
Gavel joins from this season’s BBL semifinalists Bamberg, returning to the club where he played four seasons as a guard from 2014 to 2018. As a coach, the 41-year-old led the Baskets to the BBL Cup Top Four title in February at Munich’s SAP Garden. Before his two years in Bamberg - where he had also enjoyed a successful five-year spell as a player - Gavel coached Ulm for two seasons and guided the EuroCup side to a surprise German championship in 2023. His coaching journey began in Munich after the end of his playing career, when he spent a year working with Bayern’s youth setup as an observer and individual skills coach.
“A Fresh Face of the New Coaching Generation”
“We are very pleased that Anton Gavel, our absolute first-choice candidate, will lead the sporting rebuild of our team,” said club president Herbert Hainer. “Anton has been a defining figure in German basketball, and after a highly successful playing career he has already built up impressive experience and achieved notable success as a coach. We have been in dialogue with him for quite some time. He represents a fresh face of a new generation of coaches, and we made a very conscious decision in his favor.”
Gavel, who will begin his work at BMW Park in early July, said: “I would like to thank Mr. Hainer and the entire Bayern organization for the trust this tremendously grown club has placed in me. I still know many faces there, as well as the office and the arenas where I took my very first steps into coaching after my playing career. I’m looking forward to this major challenge, one for which I also have tremendous respect.”
Coach After 18 Years as a Player
After his orientation year in Bayern’s youth program, Gavel took charge in Ulm from 2019 onward of the club’s second team in the ProB as well as the U19 side. From the summer of 2022, he coached the professional team, which under his leadership captured the first - and so far only - title in the club’s history in Swabia during his second season. Following Bamberg’s resurgence this past season, capped by a cup triumph, Gavel was voted easyCredit BBL Coach of the Year by an overwhelming majority.
As a player, Gavel announced his retirement from professional basketball at the end of August 2018 after an 18-year career. Then 33 years old, he had made 458 BBL appearances, winning the German championship five times and the cup four times. In the EuroLeague, he played 70 games across six seasons, averaging 9.4 points per game, and also made 80 appearances in the EuroCup.
At Bayern, he ranks among the club’s all-time leaders with 168 BBL appearances and 923 points. On the international stage, he earned 12 caps for Germany around EuroBasket 2015, after previously making 89 appearances for his native Slovakia. Gavel moved to Germany at the age of 15.
Adrian Sarmiento, Bayern’s managing director, added: “We are delighted to welcome Anton back. We have followed his development as a coach over the past few years with great enthusiasm. He brings enormous energy and a clear, modern vision of basketball, and he will help us continue our successful development. We can hardly wait to begin this next chapter together with Anton. We would also like to thank our colleagues at the Bamberg Baskets for the constructive discussions and the amicable solution that made this move possible.”
In Munich, Gavel will reunite with a familiar face in Thorsten Leibenath. Bayern’s future sporting director previously worked with Gavel in the same role in Ulm and had earlier coached him for two years as an assistant in Gießen from 2004 to 2006.
Anton Gavel is married and the father of one daughter and three sons.
ANTON GAVEL (October 24, 1984, Košice / Czechoslovakia)
Honours and awards as a coach
-
German Cup winner, 2026
- BBL Coach of the Year, 2026
- German champion, 2023
Honours and awards as a player
- German champion: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018
- German Cup winner: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018
- Best BBL Defender: 2012, 2013
- BBL Finals MVP: 2013