Basketball is never going to overtake hockey as Canada’s national game, but as Team Canada keeps racking up wins and asserting their dominance at the World Championships, a glance into this country’s future on the hardwood reveals that the prospects for the Men’s National Basketball Team are trending upward.
All of that starts at the top with Steve Nash, who was named General Manager in May 2012 and re-hired former Toronto Raptors bench boss Jay Triano to coach the team three months later.
While former players don’t always make elite executives, Nash is a guy that fought his way to being one of the best players in the NBA and a two-time MVP, making everyone around him better and he’s already taking that approach with the hoops version of Team Canada. Bringing back Triano, a respected coach who had some success at the NBA level, was a great first step and their combined presence overseeing this team will entice players to suit up for the squad where doing so wasn’t always something elite Canadian talented (like Nash) wanted to do.
Then you get to the roster itself and the collective is better than it has ever been in this country’s history.
Are they good enough to beat a stacked team from the United States? No, probably not, but they’re No. 25 in the FIBA rankings and climbing, so breaking into the upper echelon of basketball nation’s with this young core in the next couple years isn’t out of the question, especially as some of the traditional powerhouses (Spain, Argentina, Brazil) start to age.
Andrew Wiggins just won Rookie of the Year and has the look of a perennial All-Star – a guy that can get his own shots and take over a game on both ends of the court.
Despite his struggles in his rookie season, Nik Stauskas is a sniper from beyond the arc and young point guards Cory Joseph and Tyler Ennis should be a strong 1-2 punch on the ball for the next several years.
Tristan Thompson is a good rebounder and solid defender down low, Kelly Olynyk stretches the floor, Andrew Nicholson is good rotation player and Robert Sacre and Jordan Bachynski are serviceable in the middle.
On top of that, there are the emerging youngsters that could blossom into contributors on the international level as well – guys like Olivier Hanlan from Boston College, Dyshawn Pierre from Dayton, Kyle Wiltjer and Kevin Pangos from Gonzaga and Trey Lyles from Kentucky.
That’s a squad that goes 14-deep between the ages of 19 (Wiggins, Lyles) and 25 (Nicholson, Sacre, Bachnyski). Mix in a question mark like 7’5” center Sim Bhullar and NBA’ers Anthony Bennett, Joel Anthony and Dwight Powell and you’ve got a strong nucleus even if someone gets hurt. Plus the next generation features some potentially special talent as well. Jamal Murray showed out in the BioSteel All-Canadian game last month after winning MVP honours at the Nike Hoops Summit earlier in April, sharing MVP honours for the game with Jalen Poyser.
Each year, the number of Canadians making an impact on Division I squads south of the border increases. That has had a direct impact on the Men’s National Team and will continue to do so in the future. There used to be a time when the Canadian Men’s National Team was lucky to have one or two NBA players on the roster. Now they’re able to field a full squad of players from The Association.
The first chance this group will get to show their potential as a unit is later this summer at the 2015 FIBA Americas Championship in Monterrey, Mexico, where they’re in Group B with Puerto Rico, Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina.
The top two teams in each Group advance and if the Canadian side can supplant either Puerto Rico or Argentina in the second round, it will be a major step forward and a message to the rest of the basketball nations that Team Canada is on the rise.
