NBLC Alumni: Joey Haywood

6'1

Guard

From Vancouver, British Columbia

Tenure: 2011-2013, 2014-2015, 2017

2xCanadian of the Year

1xAll-NBLC

1xAll-Canada Team

1xAll-Defensive Team

As a player, Joey Haywood helped to establish the standard of the NBL Canada in its early days and remains among the best offensive players the league has ever seen. The career trajectory that led him to and he followed on from this was one of the most interesting player backstories there are.

His abilities were first recognised by former NBA professional and Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis at a camp held in Burnaby, British Columbia. Davis offered to mentor Haywood who, with this new encouragement, joined a local youth league and the team of Magee Secondary School, where he was the leading player each year in a tenure highlighted by a 38-point performance against Kitsilano his senior season.

From there, he played for PACWEST team Langara Falcons, before making the move cross country to Nova Scotia, joining up with the Saint Mary's Huskies. He played with them for three seasons, earning two AUS first team selections and, as a senior, the conference player of the year.

Haywood turned professional in 2011, which coincided with the first NBL Canada season, in which he would play a starring role. Joining up with the Halifax Rainmen and starting thirty times in forty-three games, he averaged 12.6 points per contest.

At the end of the regular season he led the team to the first NBLC finals, where they lost in five games to the London Lightning. As well as the silver medal, he earned a place on the All-Defensive Second Team and Canadian Player of the Year, an award he won again the following season, again in Halifax, with improved scoring average of 14.2 points per game. That season he was also named to the 2013 All-NBLC third team and All-Canadian first team.

In 2013, he signed with the Aalborg Vikings in Denmark and became the league scoring champion with a career-best, end-of-season scoring average of 25.0 points across thirty games. He started the following season with Grindavik in Iceland before leaving after four appearances and rejoining Halifax.

On his return to the Rainmen, he played 44 games with 25 starts and averaged 11.5 points in the 2014-15 NBLC season. He also made his second finals appearance, which would also be his second finals loss, this time to the Windsor Express. After sitting out the following season he once again returned to Halifax, this time for the revamped Hurricanes, playing in 47 games and averaging 8.4 points. Once again he reached the finals with Halifax but fell short of the coveted title.

After not making the final cut for the 2016-17 Raptors 905 team, Haywood turned his attention to coaching and running basketball clinics in Canada and far east Asia. He is also active online, where he posts a lot of skill and training tutorials as well as video of his exploits in streetball competitions.

It's not just league basketball where Haywood has plied his trade, he has also seen time playing at international level. A Trinidadian parent made Haywood eligible to represent Trinidad and Tobago internationally, which he did at the 2010 Centrobasket tournament. The team were eliminated in the group stage but went out with a significant 97-91 overtime victory against Puerto Rico.

Seven years later he became part of the Canadian team who won the William Jones Cup, the country's first title in the history of the competition.

Haywood also has had notable interests outside of the professional game: he is known as 'The Best Street Baller in Canada' and has been a member of the prestigious Vancouver street team, The Notic. He was also an actor as a child, appearing in such films as Air Bud and Like Mike 2 - the latter following him to his time in Halifax, where team mates called him 'Cavity' after the character he played.

This summer saw Haywood attempt a return to the competitive arena with the Fraser Valley Bandits of Canadian Elite Basketball, but for a number of reasons it didn't come to fruition. If it had done, a return to basketball in BC would have been all the more special, being where his journey began and for him to once again be playing in the land where he has seen the most significant success of his basketball career.