Joe Ragland landed in Israel Tuesday morning ahead of his upcoming season with Hapoel Tel Aviv. This won’t be the American point guard’s first season in the Holy Land as he had multiple successful seasons with Hapoel Holon including helping lead the purples to the 2022 Israeli league championship. The 34-year old’s first stop in Israel was with Hapoel Eilat in 2020-21 before moving to the center of the country between 2021-2023. Last year, Ragland played with Peristeri in Athens.

Ragland is happy to be onboard for the upcoming season with the reds, “It feels good to be with a team that’s so ambitious, ready to win, that’s kind of like my MO, as far as how I carry the game. So I’m excited to get this thing started.”

The floor general spoke about his feelings playing with Johnathan Motley and Patrick Beverley, two former NBA players, “Like I said, the club is ambitious, so they got great players and we’re going to have to find a way to win it all. The goal is to win it all. Both leagues.”

Ragland was asked if the security situation in Israel concerned him, “Nah, I came during the last year so for me this is a comfortable environment, I wasn’t really worried too much about it.”

When asked if he feels safe being In Israel Ragland answered, “For sure.”

Joe was then questioned about the difficulty of facing his former team Hapoel Holon, “It won’t be (difficult). It’s not the first time that I will play against a team after I played on that team and so it’s just a basketball game at the end of the day and it’s all love for them.”

Ragland talked about working with Coach Dedas, “I spoke to him, he’s cool, same old things with him, talked about the game plan and everything, so we’ll see how it goes.”

Finally, Ragland was asked about his former coach Guy Goodes returning to back Holon after a season up north with Hapoel Haifa, “I spoke with him too. It’s all love like I said for everyone at Holon, they know that, we know that and I’m just excited to get the year started.”