Is Joel Freeland becoming my favorite player?

I'm as gobsmacked as anyone at the transformation. He even looks more athletic. Last year he looked positively slug-like, and was forever futilely flailing at other players as they dunked all over him. I would never have thought it possible that he could block a Travis Outlaw dunk! Is jumping straight up all it takes? He now looks like the player he was for Unicaja.

There is precedence: he looked pretty useless early on in his Spanish career, but made a big leap there. Obviously he's got a steady learning curve. Which is good, given how late he started.

 

He looks leaner and stronger, must have done a lot of good conditioning work which is helping his limited hops.

 

...with our new staff....

 

I blame it on roids!

Oh wait, wrong sport...

 

He's 26, has experience, and is learning to use his body. I'm not sure why anyone should be shocked that he's a serviceable NBA bench player. He's athletic, has a good touch, and just needed to learn the game more in order to not have to think before reacting.

Sounds a lot like what could happen with a certain 21 year-old center who is on the Blazer roster.

 

He's got kind of a weird head anyway. If you stuck it on a little person it'd look about right.

I think if he grew a serious beard he'd look a lot like Chewbacca. Which is actually a pretty good look for him.

 

Freeland improved from a 0 to a 2 out of 10, but this board is way too impressed about it.

 

Joel is not a very good player. That being said...

I and many other blazers fans like players who know their role, know what they can do, and more importantly know what they can't do. Frankly, before summer league this was Thomas Robinson's problem and is still (arguably) Meyers Leonard's problem and why he is so polarizing on this board.

 

Against the Spurs, Joel looked every bit as good as Tiago Splitter. And that guy got a huge contract from SA (supposedly because we were gonna give him a similar huge contract).

 

This is who I thought he would be LAST year, legit backup big...holy shit he was terrible though.

 

I think his problem last year was that he was trying to be the same player in the NBA that he is/was on Great Britain.

 

He's about as good as Nick Collison (who he tried modeling his game after). Not bad.

 

That's a great model. You won't get paid big bucks, but you will be needed throughout a very long career. I think he understands he doesn't have the skill to be a marquee player, so modeling himself from one of the best hard hat players today is a good thing.

 

nice shoutout to Joel:
[video=vimeo;79082042]http://vimeo.com/79082042#[/video]

 

Great game by Joel tonight. I was at the game and he got the largest ovation of the night (well outside the military vets) when he checked out for LaMarcus in the 4th. The fans are really getting behind a guy who busts his butt and does the little things to help the team.

It was interesting Stotts played Joel and Rob together so much, I haven't seen it at all before. I have to say at this point I'd rather see a 3 man big rotation with Joel backing up both PF and C. I was real excited about TRob but he doesn't have the IQ or comfort with his role as Joel does. Whats the expression, ride the hot horse? No thats not it but you get the idea. I'd rather see Joel getting ~20min a game. I'm fine with us settling in on more of an 8 man rotation because all of Wright/Mo/Freeland are deserving of more minutes and with their versatility we don't need any other positions on the court.

 

Nah, TRob will and should get minutes. He has at least shown some signs of being a keeper and needs a shot. But after every game, I come out thinking Joel just had his best game yet. His improvement is remarkable.

 

I put in Freeland as my pick, then waivered and changed to Claver. I'm kicking myself about it ever since.