England Basketball Players of the Year 2013 Announced

By Sam Neter on March 28, 2014

Josh Steel, Luke Nelson and Dan Clark have been named England Basketball’s Player of the Year 2013 in each of their respective categories

The awards recognise ‘outstanding and consistent leadership, teamwork and application based on performances on court, off court, in training and in competition.’

Dan Clark picks up his first senior Player of the Year award, after leading Great Britain at Eurobasket 2013 in Slovenia, averaging 12.7 points, and 6.4 rebounds per game, whilst helping the team to a 2-3 record.

The middle three games of Britain’s five at Eurobasket 2013 were Clark’s best, highlighted by a 19 point, 9 rebound effort against Belgium.

Clark left the UK at 14 to become one of the first (the first?) Brit to take the European route at a young age, signing with Estudiantes where he had spent his entire career before leaving last year, joining Laboral Kutxa at the start of this season before being released due to injury.

He has spent this season rehabbing in England.

Luke Nelson picks up a Player of the Year award for the third consecutive year, being named the Under-18 Player of the Year to add to his 2012 award, along with his Under-16 Player of the Year Award in 2011.

2013 was a big year for Nelson both domestically and internationally, at 17 being named the youngest ever recipient of Division 1 Men’s national league Player of the Year award as he led Reading Rockets to the national championship.

He then helped lead England’s U18 Men to an impressive 5-4 record in the European Championship and maintain their Division A status for the summer of 2014.

Nelson was solid throughout the tournament, averaging 16.7 points (7th overall), 5.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists (9th overall) on 46.5% shooting, but his biggest performance came during a 75-66 win over world powerhouse Spain where he scored 29 points along with 5 assists and 6 rebounds.

After the summer he crossed the pond where he has just finished an outstanding freshman year at UC Irvine, leading the team in scoring and to the Big West regular season championship.

Josh Steel has been named Under-16 Player of the Year after making a name for himself as one of the best up and coming players to keep an eye on.

Like Nelson, Steel was impressive both at home and abroad, having solid seasons in the national league and schools competitions with GB Regional Institute, Barking Abbey, and being England’s best performer at the Division B European Championships.

He hit double figures in scoring in all but one of England’s eight European Championship games helping his country finish a respectable sixth in Sarajevo last summer. Steel’s 12.9 points per game led England and he was 18th overall in the tournament in that category. He added 7.9 rebounds, 1.5 assists whilst shooting 40.2% from the field.

“Josh displayed outstanding leadership qualities on and off the court and was essential to the development of our programme in the preparation to the European Championship in Bosnia,” said England U16 Men’s coach Andreas Kapoulas. “[He’s] a talented individual with great understanding of teamwork values.”

The 6’4″ guard was also selected for the Jordan Brand Classic International Game in Brooklyn, New York, cementing his status amongst the elite of his age group Europe.

For the women, Savannah Wilkinson (U16), Jay-Ann Bravo-Harriott (U18) and Jo Leedham (Senior) all picked up the awards – read more over at Hoopsfix Women.

Congratulations to all the winners!

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