Joel Freeland

Daniel Joel Freeland ( born February 7, 1987 in Aldershot ) is a British professional basketball player. He is 2.08 m tall and plays as a power forward for the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA.

Career

Joel Freeland did not begin until the age of 16 with the sport of basketball, after he had to give up his intended career as a football player due to injury. His first club was Solent Stars, a club from Southampton. To earn his living, Freeland worked at that time in a supermarket. In summer 2005, he was discovered by a Spanish scout at the U- 18 European Championship and committed by CB Gran Canaria for their second team. In the EBA League, the fourth- highest division in Spain, he was able to convince at first and ended the 2005/06 season with 15.2 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. Also at the prestigious Reebok Euro Camp in Treviso, he proved his talent and the NBA Draft in 2006 elected him as the Portland Trail Blazers surprisingly at the 30th place of the first round, even though he had at this time still not played a single game in the professional squad in the Canaries.

Freeland decided to stay in Spain and celebrated on 15 October 2006 compared TAU Vitoria his debut in the ACB league for the first team of CB Gran Canaria. His sporting breakthrough followed in the 2008 / 09 season, with 10 points and 4.6 points per game, Freeland established himself as one of the best players of his team. In summer 2009, he joined the Spanish giants Unicaja Malaga and was able to win right away. On 22 October 2009 he celebrated his Euro League debut against KK Partizan Belgrade. In the 2009/10 season, he led the team statistics from Malaga in the highest European competition for points and rebounds as well as in 2010/11 and 2011 /12.

In summer 2012, Freeland released his contract with Unicaja and moved to the North American NBA to the Portland Trail Blazers.

National

Joel Freeland took part with the U-18 National Team England at the Division A of the 2005 European Championships. His debut with Great Britain, he celebrated on 9 September 2006 against the Netherlands, as part of the European Basketball Championship Division B in 2007, the British managed to move up to the Division A. On the side of players like Luol Deng and Pops Mensah-Bonsu succeeded Freeland, which accounted for an average of 10 points and 5.7 rebounds, qualifying for the European Basketball Championship in 2009. in this he stayed with his team, but without a win and failed in the preliminary round. The European Basketball Championship 2011 Joel Freeland was again part of the British banns, although his team fail again in the first round, but this time the British get victories against Portugal and Poland. Joel Freeland was again one of the pillars of his team with 11.2 points and 5.8 rebounds.