Can Canada’s basketballers compete at top tier?
MEXICO CITY — There was Luis Scola, the Argentine basketball deity and soonto-be Toronto Raptors reserve, chatting up a hanger-on about an hour before his team would hit the floor. He was watching Panama play Uruguay at the FIBA Americas men’s tournament, which put him in the company of only 100 or so people. He was the only player on either the Canadian or Argentine team out there. Scola was good for a casual conversation and a bit of observation.
If he looked a bit bored, you could not blame him. Scola is as been-there-done-that as they come: He is 35, he has made an all-tournament team at the world championship, and he has been named the MVP of this tournament three times. He has an Olympic gold, too, if you are into that.
He knows what to do, even if he cannot do it as well as he used to do it. For the Canadian entry in this tournament, the biggest question they face is the opposite: Will they know what is called for in a big moment?
All of the normal disclaimers exist: It is indeed a very long tournament, and Canada will not have to play Scola, who scored 35 in a destruction of Canada that has become a ritual, again until the semifinals at the earliest.
Andrew Wiggins’ involvement will certainly cause discussion, which is understandable.
Argentina plays in a way that emphasizes its best player, Scola. As Canadian forward Kelly Olynyk noted, Scola sometimes touches the ball three or four times on the same possession.
Wiggins, on the other hand, shot nine times. He scored 13 points, the co-leader for Canada, but did not stand out more than once or twice. It must, then, be ingrained in the team’s collective mindset to include him.
“I think that everyone came out of the gates a little tentative,” Heslip said.
Canada has the young legs to get through this tournament. We are about to find out how adaptable their minds are. ekoreen@ nationalpost.com Twitter.com/ekoreen