The basketball arrivals continued at Ben Gurion airport as Jaylen Hoard landed in Israel ready to join Maccabi Tel Aviv after having played the past two seasons with crosstown rivals Hapoel. The French big man starred for the reds in both the domestic league as well as the EuroCup and over the summer he decided to make the move to the top continental competition.

After being met by a few dozen fans, Hoard spoke to the assembled media about making the move to yellow-and-blue, the goals for the upcoming campaign as well as making the jump to the Euroleague and of course just getting back onto the floor.

“It feels great [to join Maccabi Tel Aviv]. Honestly, I’m grateful for the opportunity and I can’t wait for the season to start and play basketball again. I’m just excited.”

The 25-year old Hoard, who began his professional career in the NBA with the Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder will be making his Euroleague debut after a pair of seasons in the EuroCup, “It’s my first time being in the Euroleague so I’m just going to discover everything, being able to adapt. I know for sure we are going to compete, we’ll see how it goes but I’m very excited and I know we have a lot of talented guys on the team it should be a good season for sure.”

Making the move from red to yellow-and-blue is never simple in Tel Aviv as the fan bases will make sure to let each other know their feelings down deep, but for Hoard, he just wants to hoop “A little bit I guess just because of the rivalry and stuff like that but at the end of the day I’m here to play basketball and just keep it at that. No distractions.”

The reason to head access town was a simple one with the opportunity to play in the Euroleague, “What they’re doing is great but I played two seasons in the EuroCup and I got better each year, now I want to take the step to the Euroleague and see what that’s like and compete against the best. That’s pretty much how I made the decision.”

This summer, Hoard was with the France National Team squad ahead of the Olympics and was one of the final cuts before the Games, but nonetheless the experience was an incredible one for the us and coming talent, “It was amazing and a great experience. I played with a lot of guys during the window around February and it was a good experience being able to compete against those guys. High level talented Euroleague and NBA players. I feel like it was good for me and I’m sure it will help me throughout the season. They were good in the tournament but being a part of the process was great.”

Hoard will be playing with a pair of new point guards in Rokas Jokubaitis and Tamir Blatt who he will count on feeding him the ball in his happy zone, above the rim for some of his patented dunks, “I’m excited. I know about Rokas but I played against Tamir last year and he’s a great shooter, a good player so I’m excited to play with him and it will be fun.”

As for goals going into his Euroleague debut season, Hoard knows that he will need to play his best basketball in order to help Maccabi make an impact across all competitions, “It’s my first time in the Euroleague so I want to play my hardest gave everything for me team and show that I can compete with the best. As far as the team, try to win everything that’s in front of us and try to win as many games as possible in each league and see where it goes.”