Canada’s hoops hopes high
Introduction of Nash, Barrett to national program six years ago started major turnaround
It was 2012, and Canada had flamed out of Olympic basketball qualifying — again — missing the Summer Games for the fifth time in the past 20 years, and Rowan Barrett was excited.
International success remained elusive, as were Canada’s NBA players when the national team came calling, and the team’s results disappointing, with an 0-11 record against teams ranked in the top 10 globally.
“It was not … a good time,” Barrett said.
But the former Olympian, who had just been named the executive vice-president and assistant general manager of Canada Basketball, could see a rising tide of domestic talent, one he predicted would soon be a tsunami.
“Right around 2012, I just saw so many who were coming in the funnel. And I thought, ‘My goodness, this is a moment in time, that if we hit it, if we cultivate what I see coming through the pipeline the right way, we have a chance to be successful moving forward,’ ” he said. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘By 2016 we’ll be in the double-digits in players in the NBA.’ I talked to Steve Nash about that, and he said ‘no way, no way.’
“He’d been the lone (star) for so many years in the NBA, I don’t know that he could fathom at the time that there would besom any. And when I started walking him down the list and showing him where they were ranked, and their size and skill, and showing him the videos, he was like ‘Wow, what do we do?’ ”
You don’t need to have the benefit of hindsight to see the naming of Nash as Team Canada GM was a massive boost for the program. The former NBA MVP and the leader of the only Canadian team to qualify for the Olympics in the past 26 years brought in name recognition and the accompanying corporate sponsorship cash, and had the connections to bring the country’s NBA players in from the cold after years of dysfunctional relationships with the program.
But it was the decision to play the long game, to invest in the growing numbers of talented young players and to revamp the approach to development that has Canada on the swelling surge of success.
Last year, the Under-19 men won the world championship, beating the U.S. in the semifinals before dominating Italy in the final. In April, a team comprised completely of Canadian university players rolled through a Commonwealth Games tournament full of teams stocked with professional players and earned a silver medal, Canada’s first men’s basketball medal in the tournament.
“It proved to ourselves that we were just as good as everybody else out there, because they were all pros, and all 25-30 years old,” said UBC centre Grant Shepherd, who was part of the team, along with Thunderbirds coach Kevin Hanson. “It gave me a lot of inspiration, because it gave me the idea I can be a high-level pro coming out of Canada.
“(Canadian basketball) is definitely on the rise. All of our young teams are getting further in (international) competitions. We’re getting to the top three or four. We have a really good future ahead of us.”
Canada has already pushed to the forefront as a source of top-tier pros. In 2013 and 2014, the No. 1 overall picks in the NBA Draft were Canadian (Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins), and should Barrett’s heralded son R.J., who heads to Duke University this year as the early consensus No. 1, go first overall, Canada would have more No. 1’s than any other non-U.S. country.
That talent Barrett identified in 2012 has finally started to filter out, as well. Dhillon Brooks starred for the University of Oregon for three years before being drafted by the Memphis Grizzlies in the second round last year. His Ducks teammate Chris Boucher just earned a championship ring with the Golden State Warriors. Jamal Murray averaged close to 17 points, four rebounds and 3 1/2 assists with the Denver Nuggets — as a rookie.
Add in the veterans like Tristan Thompson, Corey Joseph and Kelly Olynyk, and there is enough top-level talent to compete with any team in the world.
“We have a great group of guys and coaches, and I think people are starting to take notice,” said Olynyk, a Kamloops native. “We have a lot of talent in the highest league in the world, with the best players in the world, and that’s something that wasn’t there before. Now we just have to come together as a country and a unit for that … This is the time to bring it all together.”
DEEP END OF THE POOL
While there has been a torrent of talent flowing into professional leagues around the world, the national team program executives have been working hard to make sure the tap stays on.
Identifying the talent is easy enough. Quebec native Olivier Rioux, who is 6-foot-10 at the age of 12, has already caught the eye of Barrett and the world, with videos of him dunking all over his age group compatriots becoming a predictable viral hit.
The hard part is establishing the framework to maintain a deep, consistent talent pool once the players reach the senior level, one that has a homogenized style of play and team culture. Barrett and Co. began by taking a deeper look at the underlying numbers of teams that had finished on the podium in international play, using advanced analytics to guide their outline of what they wanted their team to be.
Once they had established the identity — a fast, quick-attacking team that would grind you down defensively — they started a long, slow, deliberate process of cultivating those commonalities into their players, from the youth players to the pros.
The results came quickly. In 2014, just two years later, Canada won bronze at the 2015 FIBA Americas, its first medal since a bronze in 2001. A silver at the 2015 Pan Am Games followed.
“I think we’ve always had the athletes — always — but at times we were behind in terms of growing of the skill, growing the knowledge of the game,” said Barrett. “We’ve been seeing historic result after historic result in our age groups. If you look across all of our sports in our country, regardless of gender or age, how many world championships are being won? We’re doing it. We’re in the midst of it. It’s a wave that we’re on right now. In terms of international success, we’re seeing it.
“For the men and the women, both of our programs, we’re both hungry. We want to get to that point at the World Cup or Olympics, and we’re pushing toward it.”
Another change has been the shift in the developmental arc outside of the Canadian program. The path to the pros usually started with the best high-school players spurning their provincial teams to play for travelling clubs that participated in the AAU leagues in the States. There, they’d face the best youth talent in the world, and do it in front of the NCAA coaches whose schools served as a de facto minor league for the NBA.
Now, efforts are being made to harmonize the seasons and schedules between club and provincial teams, and more Canadian players are spending their senior years in high school at U.S. prep academies. Shepherd was R.J. Barrett’s roommate at Montverde in Florida. Brooks went to the famed Findlay Prep in Las Vegas, as did fellow Canadians Thompson, Bennett and Joseph.
Dallas Mavericks forward Dwight Powell, who attended IMG Academy in Florida, hopes the times will change to the point where Canada’s top players can stay home without being penalized for a lack of exposure. The system needs to hone everything but the talent, so when players are spotted, there is a foundation of skill and drive to accompany their talent.
“Part of the reason some us left from my generation was to pursue a higher level of exposure,” said Powell. “And now that the level of exposure is increasing, it would be beautiful to see us grow our own players at home and then release them on the world at the college level, or pro level, or whatever it may be.”
WHERE’S WIGGINS?
The question on most basketball fans’ minds is why isn’t Canada’s current superstar player, Andrew Wiggins, with the team? It’s not a new question — in fact, it’s the same theme that has dogged Canada from its inception.
NBA players once steered clear of the national team because of bitter feelings over a perceived bias from their high-school days.
Others had contractual issues, with their pro teams forbidding them from participating, or were pending free agents unwilling to risk an injury.
Still more were wary of the increased wear on their bodies — Nash’s summer exploits for Canada did his back no good — preferring to sit out between pro seasons.
The most common reason is the windows, usually four per year, of international play conflicting with their pro teams’ schedule.
Barrett skirted the Wiggins issue when asked at a press conference Wednesday.
“We have athletes who are being drawn on all year, even from their NBA teams. You’re sometimes having to play for your country sometimes thinking, ‘Am I walking away from my employer?’ It’s … mortifying sometimes to think that the type of choice some of these athletes have to make,” said Barrett. “However, we do have athletes that do make those choices, and are here. And athletes that have been training and playing since last August, and they’re here in June suiting up.”
There’s been backroom talk of a rift between Wiggins and coach Jay Triano, stemming from a 2015 FIBA Americas semifinal where the Minnesota Timberwolves star was benched in a 79-78 loss — a game Canada lost on a free throw with 0.3 seconds left on the clock, where victory would have put them into the Olympics. It was Wiggins’ man who was fouled by his replacement, leading to the free throws. So Canada moves on without the all-world talent in Wiggins, looking to capitalize on its biggest opportunity in years.
The Pacific Rim Classic games against China Friday and Sunday serve as a warm-up to their FIBA Americas qualifiers against the Dominican Republic in Toronto (June 29) and the Virgin Islands in Ottawa (July 2). Canada (3-1) is second behind Dominican Republic in its pool, having lost its first matchup 88-76 in November, but that roster was a team without its NBA players.
Expectations are high, but any idea of labelling this a Golden Generation are quickly shot down.
“I’d stop short of identifying this era in that way,” said John Mills, the co-chair of Canada Basketball’s board of directors.
“The gold at the Under-19 Worlds was a massive achievement, but we have a long way to go before we start attaching a colour of medal to our era. I think everyone hopes that we’ll be able to look back 10 years from now and be pleased with the results, but there’s a lot of heavy lifting to do between now and then.”
Part of the reason some us left from my generation was to pursue a higher level of exposure.” Dwight Powell