What would you expect from Freeland if he comes over next season?

[RR7]

http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/i...tml?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Guess we shouldn't expect anything.

Freeland, a 6-foot-11, 225-pound bruiser who Buchanan calls “one of the top three or four post players in Europe,” would fill an immediate need for the Blazers and they would be open to bringing him to the NBA. But his contract is a problem. He just completed the second of a three-year deal with Unicaja Malaga of the ACB League.

The combination of money he makes for Unicaja — millions of euro per season — and the lack of guaranteed playing time with the Blazers is a hurdle.

“If his contract situation was ideal for us and for him, we would bring him over right now,” Buchanan said. “We feel like he could come in an be a serviceable backup post player. Joel is never going to be anything more than that kind of backup role player, but he’s ready to do that.”

Buchanan compares Freeland’s situation to that of Luis Scola, who enjoyed several successful seasons in Europe before joining the Houston Rockets three seasons ago at age 27. Freeland, 24, did not start playing basketball until he was a teenager and has made gradual improvement since the Blazers drafted him with the 30th pick in 2006. He had his best season in 2010-11, averaging 13.2 points and 6.1 rebounds, and another season in the ACB League can only help.

“Next summer we’ll take a really hard look at bringing him over,” Buchanan said. “He’ll be 25 and starting to enter the prime of career and will have another high-level European season under his belt. Next summer, we’ll have serious discussions about it.”

 

[Rastapopoulos]

Beat me to it.

As for Freeland dunking, check out #4:

[video]http://acbtv.acb.com/video/4007-lac...sion_asegurada_con_el_top5_de_cuartos_de_fina l[/video]

 

[Further]

That sucks that he is unlikely to come over. I think he could be a real good bench player with the potential to become a solid starter down the line.

The much more likely player to come over seems to be Claver. I have less hope for him, but I really don't know enough to make a good assessment.

 

[B-Roy]

I would guess the percentage of hits to misses with drafted euros is probably better than the hits to misses with drafted college players.

That's because there's more college prospects, and in general, college prospects are better.

 

[RR7]

because there's more, the percentage is worse? That makes no sense. The percentage, if college prospects are better, should be better. And I would bet they are not.

 

[jlprk]

There seems to be no end to these crackers. If we keep letting them sail here they're going to take over our continent.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

I really want him to come over. I think he could make an immediate impact off the bench.

 

[THE HCP]

I really want him to come over. I think he could make an immediate impact off the bench.

Of course YOU would!

 

[Boob-No-More]

I really want him to come over. I think he could make an immediate impact off the bench.

Or, we could have had six seasons of immediate impact off the bench from Paul Millsap by the time we see Joel Freeland in a Blazers uniform (excluding summer league).

BNM

 

[3RA1N1AC]

or we could have had michael jordan

 

[Rastapopoulos]

I've got to say that Freeland is already way better than I thought he would ever be. This is a guy from England (where nobody plays basketball) who didn't start playing until late. And now he's one of the top big men in the second best league in the world. Every year this looks like less of a wasted pick. And we still have his rights! Here's that year's draft from Orlando's pick of Fran Vasquez (who is probably about on a par with Freeland, albeit less of a scorer and less improved) down to Milsap. Anyone care to count how many of these are still providing good value to the team that drafted them?

(Of course, Milsap wouldn't be either, if Utah hadn't've matched...)

11. Orlando             Fran Vazquez
12. New Orleans         Hilton Armstrong
13  Philadelphia        Thabo Sefololsha
14. Utah                Ronnie Brewer
15. New Orleans         Cedric Simmons
16. Chicago             Rodney Carney
17. Indiana             Shawne Williams	
18. Washington          Oleksly Pecherov
19. Sacramento          Quincy Douby
20. New York            Renaldo Balkman
21. Phoenix             Rajon Rondo
22. New Jersey          Marcus Williams
23. New Jersey          Josh Boone
24. Memphis             Kyle Lowry
25. Cleveland           Shammon Brown
26. LA Lakers           Jordan Farmar
27. Phoenix             Sergio Rodriguez
28. Dallas              Maurice Ager
29. New York            Mardy Collins
30. Portland            Joel Freeland

31. Portland            James White
32. Houston             Steve Novak
33. Atlanta             Solomon Jones	
34. LA Clippers         Paul Davis
35. Toronto             P.J. Tucker
36. Minnesota           Craig Smith
37. Minnesota           Bobby Jones
38. Golden State        Kosta Perovic
39. Milwaukee           David Noel
40. Seattle             Denham Brown
41. Orlando             James Augustine
42. Cleveland           Daniel GIbson
43. New Orleans         Marcus Vinicius
44. Orlando             Lior Elyahu
45. Indiana             Alexander Johnson
46. Utah                Dee Brown
47. Utah                Paul Milsap

MAN, that was a shitty draft! LaMarcus and Rondo are probably the only players from that draft likely to be all-stars next season.

 

[jlprk]

Freeland, a 6-foot-11, 225-pound bruiser who Buchanan calls “one of the top three or four post players in Europe,”

And now he's one of the top big men in the second best league in the world.

Where have I heard this before?

 

[Rastapopoulos]

I was watching a set of video highlights for Jonas Valanciunas, who is either withdrawing from the draft because of buyout issues, or staying in and getting picked as high as #4, according to several mocks, and I noticed that a lot of them were against Unicaja and Freeland. And it looked like Valanciunas was DOMINATING. So I looked up the stats from those games:
First game, Unicaja wins 98-91
Second game, Unicaja loses 70-65

Notice that actually Valanciunas plays very short minutes, and hardly at all in the win for his team (whose PG is Khalid El-Amin!). Not only did Freeland get better stats (albeit in more minutes) in both games, our own Nedzad actually got better stats in FEWER minutes. In fact, the first of those games was Nedzad's best game evah. Now, of course Valanciunas is very young, but it's still sort of encouraging.

 

[3RA1N1AC]

bring over nedzad!

 

[3RA1N1AC]

Where have I heard this before?

marc gasol?

 

[Rastapopoulos]

bring over nedzad!

Seems unlikely, especially as he's just acquired Spanish citizenship (and thus is more useful to Spanish teams who have to keep below a quota of non-Spaniards).

 

[3RA1N1AC]

Seems unlikely, especially as he's just acquired Spanish citizenship (and thus is more useful to Spanish teams who have to keep below a quota of non-Spaniards).

yeah i was kidding, but hey, he cant be worse than earl barron