Joel Freeland Confident of Qualifying for Eurobasket 2011

By Sam Neter on June 3, 2010

Freeland is confident of Team GB's chances in August

Jeff Taylor published a great interview with Team GB rising star Joel Freeland this week. Joel covers his season with Unicaja Malaga as well as Team GB’s chances at the upcoming Eurobasket qualifiers in August.

Freeland seems confident we can qualify for Eurobasket 2011 saying;

I think we should be good. We’ve got Luol Deng (Chicago Bulls) and Ben Gordon (Detroit Pistons)- they’re set to play. We’re going to have a great side. Obviously we didn’t have everyone last year in Poland. We have some tough games coming up but we should qualify for the European (Championship) in 2011 and be ready for 2012 (Olympics).

He also feels it won’t be a problem for Detroit Pistons player and new Team GB addition Ben Gordon to fit in;

I think it will be easy. He’s a veteran in the NBA and knows how to make adjustments. He’ll be able to adapt and play the way (Britain coach) Chris Finch wants us to play. As long as we can get him there from the get-go, everything should be fine. It’s the same for everyone. You join up a whole new group of players and must learn how to play with each other over a short period of time. That’s never easy.

Read the full FIBA Joel Freeland interview here.

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