Freeland ready to help GB

Portland Trailblazers' forward Joel Freeland has committed to the Great Britain national team and is hoping to make a return to international duty sooner rather than later.

Freeland held a conference call with various members of the British basketball media in the midst of a reasonably successful start to the season for him personally.

He said: "I'm always committed to helping the national squad, I only took time off last season for personal reasons, from here on out I'm fully committed, I just hope I can continue as I am at the moment to be involved with the team."

"Last year I struggled a lot as I thought I had to play in the same way I played in Europe but this league is completely different, I took the summer and realised who I was in this league and who I wanted to be.'

'There is always going to be a responsibility to promote British basketball, during the summer I am interested in promoting the game, people have been trying to do it over the years and it has moved forward but it could be a lot better.'

'Joe Prunty is a good guy, very down to earth, we had a good conversation, I'm going to be in contact with him throughout the season.'

The power-forward's Portland team have also begun well standing 2nd in the Western Conference at the time of writing as well as being on a 9-1 winning streak.

He continued: 'Me playing defence and helping the team, playing solid basketball has given me the opportunity to get onto the court.'

'Getting offensive rebounds is something that I worked on, giving energy at the offensive end and defensive end of the court, it is something I wanted to bring to the team.'

'We have a great starting line-up and great players on the bench, we have players that complement each other on the court - I think that is the reason we have been successful at the moment.'

You can listen below to various clips from the interview via Soundcloud

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