Basketball is just beginning to become popular in England. And a lot of people is starting to embrace this type of sport in their country even thou basketball is just starting to rise in England there are already basketball players from England that has already started to climb the ladder of fame.
Let’s name a few of England’s Famous Basketball players.
John Ekwugha Amaechi
The son of a Nigerian, Igbo father, he was raised in Heaton Moor, Stockport, England, with his two younger sisters by his English mother, attending Stockport Grammar School. Amaechi moved to the United States to play high school basketball at St. John’s Jesuit High School in Toledo, Ohio. He began playing college basketball at Vanderbilt but transferred to Penn State, where he was a two-time First Team Academic All-American selection.
While at Penn State, Amaechi became a motivational public speaker and a mentor for area youth. The first player raised in Great Britain (Manchester, England) to play in the NBA, John Amaechi also scored the first NBA points of the new millenium (1/2/00 at Miami).
Not drafted by an NBA franchise, he played 28 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1995-96, then spent three seasons in Europe — with Cholet and Limoges in France, with Kinder Bologna in Italy, with Panathinaikos in Greece (which he led to the quarter-finals of the Euro League in 1997-98) and with the Sheffield Sharks in England — before returning to the NBA with the Orlando Magic in 1999-2000.
In February 2007, Amaechi spoke about his homosexuality on ESPN’s Outside the Lines program. He also released a book, Man in the Middle, published by ESPN Books, which discusses his career and life as a closeted professional athlete.
Amaechi is the first NBA player to speak publicly about being gay.
Few male team sports members in the United States have come out as gay. Among them are former NFL players Esera Tuaolo, Roy Simmons, and Dave Kopay, and former Major League Baseball players Glenn Burke and Billy Bean. Bean wrote an op-ed in support of Amaechi’s decision. Still he is recognized by as Englands Famous Basketball Players.
Joel Daniel Freeland
The 19-year-old, 6-10 forward shocked a lot of people when he became the first Brit ever taken in the first round of the draft by the Blazers this summer. Nobody was more shocked than Freeland himself, not least because he had never even touched a basketball until he was 16 definitely one of Englands Famous Basketball Players
One NBA scout told me pre-draft he could see him developing into a Nowitzki-style player with his inside-out game and, having just spent a month covering him on international duty with the Great Britain team in their European Championship qualifying program, I can see what the fuss is about.
The kid has great mobility, foot speed, a nice touch, and is supremely coachable. Yes, no doubt that he is one of Englands Famous Basketball players.
Gran Canaria did not want to release Freeland for GB duty this month and he quite simply could have stayed on the beach in the Canary Islands and worked out with his team. Instead, he risked an argument with his club and hauled himself around such European bright spots as Spisska Nova Ves in eastern Slovakia and Durres in Albania because he wanted to play for his country.
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