Canada’s depth is on display
Nicholson and Wiggins step up in solid 109-82 victory over Uruguay
Steve Nash took charge of the Canadian men’s national basketball team in May 2012, which was either fortuitous or very purposeful. The flood of Canadian talent into the NBA was just beginning. Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph were first-round selections who had just completed their rookie seasons; Andrew Nicholson would become a first-round pick about a month later. That was just the start of the parade, of course. Since Nicholson, six more Canadians have been picked in the first round. You know what they say about timing’s importance.
It was with that knowledge that Nash and head coach Jay Triano created their stylistic ethos. In marathon tournaments like the current FIBA Americas Championship, it can be hard to play at too quick of a pace. Here in Mexico, teams will play up to 10 games in as few as 12 days. It’s too much of a load to keep your best players’ legs fresh. Having an event in Mexico City, at an altitude higher than Denver’s, which is a frequent headache in the NBA, makes it even tougher. The preferred slow pace of teams like Uruguay and Panama can feel positively regressive after witnessing what the Golden State Warriors did last season.
The exception is Canada. The plan only works if the country’s depth is for real, though. So far, it has been. And it is crucial. Consider Andrew Wiggins, the team’s star. He just got finished playing all 82 games in his rookie season, averaging more than 36 minutes per night. After scoring 18 points in 23 minutes in Canada’s 109-82 win over Uruguay on Monday evening, he is averaging a little more than 24 minutes per game. Do you think that makes him more effective? Do you think that makes playing for Canada in the future more appealing to Wiggins? Do you think that makes letting Wiggins play more appealing to the Minnesota Timberwolves?
“It’s a good feeling. I play every minute hard,” said Wiggins, who had the most court time on the team Monday. “When I get subbed out I know the person coming in for me is going to do the same thing I did: go hard, play good defence and play the role they’re supposed to play.”
“My thing for the guys who start and the guys who get longer minutes is play as hard as you can,” Triano said. “We want to take an advantage, we want to take a step up when you go to the bench. We know a lot of the teams in the tournament aren’t as deep as we are. We should be throwing fresh bodies, not only through each game but through the tournament as the tournament goes on.”
For a long time, the Canadian brain trust has talked about how meaningful it will be when the team has to cut an NBA player. It already sort of happened this year, as Utah’s second-round pick, Olivier Hanlan, who will play in Lithuania this year, failed to make the squad — and that was without Milwaukee’s Tyler Ennis and Utah’s Trey Lyles in camp. Canada is proving its depth is already for real.