Of the many questions that will have to be answered before the Canadian men’s national team can chase their hoop dreams against the world’s best for the first time in nearly a decade, two of them have finally been answered.
After the FIBA World Cup draw was held in Beijing early Saturday morning (EDT) Canada knows where they are playing and who they are playing.
They’re the easy questions to answer, but it’s good to get them out of the way:
Canada knows their opening group stage games of the 2019 FIBA World Cup will be in Dongguan, a city of eight million about 2,100 kilometers south of Beijing and about 80 kilometers from Hong Kong.
They know they are in Group H which may be the most difficult of the eight four-team groups as they will face Lithuania, ranked sixth in the world, Australia, ranked 11th and 37th-ranked Senegal. And while FIBA’s world rankings can be misleading since they are based on an eight-year rolling average, on paper 23rd-ranked Canada will have to pull an upset to advance to the round of 16.
Australia’s ideal lineup could feature Andrew Bogut (Golden State) and Aaron Baynes (Boston) up front with Joe Ingles (Utah), Ben Simmons (Philadelphia) and Patty Mills (San Antonio) on the perimeter, along with Matthew Dellavedova (Cleveland) and Thon Maker (Detroit) coming off the bench.
Lithuania’s front court could include Jonas Valanciunas (Memphis) and Domantas Sabonis (Indiana) supported by a long list of experienced EuroLeague players playing for a federation that has finished third and fourth at the last two World Cups.
After that? The big questions?
Those are still out there and will linger until they get dealt with.
The biggest of all is how Canada — nearly a decade into an unprecedented surge of elite basketball talent – stacks up against the world’s best.
On paper they should stack up well – no team outside of the United States has as many players in the NBA, for example, and for the last four years Canada has dominated competition from the Americas, including a 10-2 record in World Cup qualifying.
But Canada is now formally entering the big leagues of international competition and the reality is there is no way to tell where they fit in given their limited track record.
The Canadian men’s team has played in the Olympics once in 30 years, finishing seventh in 2000. They have played in the World Cup once in 16 years, finishing winless in 2010 along with Tunisia and Jordan.
And while Steve Nash, the former Canada Basketball general manager, called the current wave of talent Canada’s ‘Golden Generation’ the reality is there are many steps to take before the country can properly expect to play for a medal at the highest levels of international basketball.
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In China the first goal is to advance to the round of 16 as all the teams that make it that far are assured of a spot in one of four winner-take-all Olympic qualifying tournaments in the summer of 2020.
The next goal is to advance to the quarter-finals as all eight teams of those will have a chance to compete for one of the seven automatic Olympic berths that can be earned at the World Cup.
To do that Canada would need to finish with the second-best record among the teams from the Americas, keeping in mind that Team USA – undefeated at the World Cup and the Olympics since 2006 — is the prohibitive favourite to win their seventh straight global gold.
Anything beyond that – a semi-final berth and a chance to play for World Cup medal – would have to be considered a bonus.
But there are a lot of questions that need to be resolved before then. Some of them are logistical – what shape will Canada’s training camp take, what kind of exhibition schedule they’ll play and and where will the money come from to pay for the most expensive undertaking the program has ever envisioned?
Team USA, for comparison, is planning for a six-week commitment from its roster.
Some of the issues are even more pressing, the biggest in the short-term being hiring someone to coach what should be the most talented men’s team the country has ever assembled.
When Rowan Barrett was announced as general manager earlier last month he made clear that the position was open which was somewhat of a surprise given Jay Triano was the head coach as of last summer and according to multiple sources was never formally told the position was no longer his.
Among the candidates are coaches with long ties to the program and others from outside the Canadian basketball orbit.
Roy Rana, who is the most decorated head coach Canada has ever had at the age-group level and proved his mettle at the senior level as the primary force behind the men’s team 10-2 run in World Cup qualifying, is being interviewed, according to multiple sources.
Gordie Herbert, who played for Canada at the 1984 Olympics and who has had a long and successful career coaching in Europe and who coached in one of the qualifying windows will also be interviewed.
Barrett said he is also considering international candidates.
Among them – according to multiple sources — are Ettore Messina, an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs, longtime Italian national team head coach and twice the EuroLeague coach of the year and Phoenix Suns head coach Igor Kokoskov who coached Slovenia to a gold medal at the European championships in 2017. Former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt was perhaps the leading candidate but had to withdraw due to health concerns.
The interviews are being conducted this month with a decision expected in April.
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The roster will be the next critical issue.
As has long predicted Canada has reached the point where they will likely have to cut – or not include – NBA players in making up their 12-man roster.
In addition they’ll have to look past some quality players who helped them get this far. Remarkably, 36 athletes were part of the qualifying process which means some loyal soldiers will likely be excluded in favour of players who have had only fleeting contact with the program.
Another variable is the health of some of the players who would rate strong consideration.
Tristan Thompson is one of the leaders of the program and was having one of the most productive seasons of his career but has been limited to 35 games with the Cleveland Cavaliers due to ankle and foot injuries.
Dillon Brooks had his second season with the Memphis Grizzlies cut short due to foot surgery.
Tyler Ennis was having a strong season in Europe before suffering a gruesome ankle injury that required surgery.
As well there will questions around the level of interest of the likes of Andrew Wiggins who hasn’t played for Canada since 2015; likewise Jamal Murray and Trey Lyles who has only played once for Canada in an age-group tournament. The availability of talented youngsters the likes of R.J. Barrett and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander may also be in question as typically NBA teams like to keep their developing players close at hand in the off-season.
But the biggest issue will be can Canada get it done with a team that will have had individually almost no experience on the world stage – Kelly Olynyk is the only likely holdover from the 2010 World Cup — and no experience as a unit.
Throw in the difficulty of their qualifying group and while there are good reasons to excited about Canada’s chances to make themselves heard in China with dreams of podium finishes or at least punching their ticket to the 2020 Olympics, there are just as many reasons that Canada’s graduation to the fast lane of international basketball could face some bumps on the long road to China and beyond.
