The job of flag bearer for Canadian basketball remains open even as Steve Nash is due to enter the Naismith Hall of Fame in September, four years after his NBA retirement and 15 years since he last played internationally wearing the maple leaf.
The pool of applicants is deep and getting deeper given the quality and volume of players stepping onto the world stage carrying Canadian passports.
But we can cross Andrew Wiggins off the list. It’s a job he’s not interested in having.
What other conclusion is there, given he ruled himself out for a pair of World Cup qualifying games in Toronto and Ottawa later this summer, the last two games of the first round as Canada positions itself to advance to the World Cup in China next September?
Canadians have been waiting for the magical moment when it can field something close to a full squad for nearly a decade, it feels like, as it was clear that the talent level in the country was rising like floodwater.
But so often who doesn’t play overshadows those that make the time. It’s wrong, but it’s how it will be until it changes.
So when Canada Basketball released its list of training camp invitees Monday for this summer’s competitions, it’s inevitable you skip past those on it — solid NBA talents like Kelly Olynyk, Tristan Thompson, Cory Joseph, Jamal Murray, Dillon Brooks, Dwight Powell, as well as top European pros such as Melvin Ejim, Kevin Pangos, the Scrubb brothers and others — and be drawn to those ‘not available’: Wiggins, Tyler Ennis, Nik Stauskas and Trey Lyles.
Of those four, Ennis and Stauskas’ absences are easily explained as they are pending NBA free agents and unlikely to be under contract. Lyles would be great to have but it’s hard to get worked up about someone who, though born in Saskatoon, has spent the bulk of his formative years in the U.S. His presence feels like found money.
But Wiggins?
His absence is tougher to understand, given he’s entering the first year of a five-year, $148-million contract with the Minnesota, is 23 years old, healthy and otherwise unencumbered. Two weeks in late June — all in Canada — doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
According to sources, he was planning to play this summer, and then changed course some time after the Timberwolves were eliminated in the first-round of the playoffs on April 28th.
There have been reports that Wiggins is resistant to play for national team head coach Jay Triano stemming from him seeing just 26 minutes of floor time while scoring nine points and grabbing two rebounds while accumulating four turnovers against Venezuela in Canada’s heart-breaking loss at the 2015 Olympic qualifying tournament. It was Wiggins’ man who teammate Aaron Doornekamp fouled while rebounding in the game-ending possession leading to the deciding free throws with no time on the clock. Wiggins has never communicated any issue with the coaching staff and was on list of camp invitees until pulling out his name at the last minute, explaining he wanted to use the time to train individually.
“I think that definitely his initial desire was to play,” said men’s senior national team general manager Rowan Barrett on a conference call Monday. “He definitely had that plan to play. I do think he had some circumstances come up that are going to limit his ability to play for us in June.”
Not that the talented slasher from Thornhill, Ont., won’t yet have his moment starring in red and white. If Canada is ever going to fulfil its basketball potential, he’ll likely need to be part of it. It could be at the World Championships in 2019 or at the Olympics in 2020.
The Timberwolves star is gifted enough he could make his mark when he feels it’s time.
But the heavy lifting of galvanizing a program, setting an example and proving to others that restoring Canada’s lustre on the international stage — no easy task given our senior men’s team is ranked 23rd, sandwiched between Germany and Iran — will fall to someone else.
There are plenty of broad, capable shoulders — Murray, Olynyk, Joseph, Thompson. But Wiggins is the only one with star power, so his absence is felt.
Still, who leads the program is more of a theoretical question for now.
In real terms, Canada should be fine against the Dominican Republic in Toronto on June 29th and against the U.S. Virgin Islands on July 2nd in Ottawa, which follow exhibition games against China in Vancouver and Victoria on June 22nd and 24th, respectively.
If they win both games and beat the Dominican by 12, they would avenge an 11-point loss to them in November and secure first place in their pool with further qualifying game slated for windows in September, November and February of 2019.
Seven teams from the Americas qualify for the expanded 32-nation World Cup. It would be a shock if Canada wasn’t one of them.
But Canadian basketball fans want Canada to be better than fine. They’re in the market for great.
They’ve been watching this wave of talent rise in slow motion and waiting for it to wash over the rest of the basketball world, announcing Canada as one of the adults in the room of international basketball. Wiggins — and others — signalling he’s in with both feet would have sent a powerful message that the future is getting closer.
Granted, late June isn’t an ideal time for NBA players — they don’t typically begin ramping up their training until mid-July — but it’s hard to fathom how Wiggins couldn’t have made himself had he really wanted to be there.
All Canada Basketball can do is ask Wiggins to volunteer.
“Obviously we don’t have everybody that we’d like,” said senior men’s head coach Jay Triano. “But we do have a good group here. We can only have 12 on the team and only play five at a time. I’m gonna focus on the guys that are here.”
As always, that will be fluid. Pangos’ name was on the list but, given that the second-team all-EuroLeague guard will be playing in Lithuania well into June, is a pending free agent and is planning a summer wedding, his participation would have to be considered tentative at best. Ditto for Thompson, who will be playing in the NBA Finals and has had his share of off-court drama that might be cause for him to see some down time.
Which is why having Wiggins in the fold would have been so welcome this time around. It would have indicated that, all things being equal, Canada’s very best players are willing to give up their time to deliver on the promise that everyone has been able to see coming for so many years now. It would have given gained him important international experience, helped build out team dynamics and maybe even helped sell some tickets and sponsorships — no small issue for Canada Basketball, where dollars are always tight.
It doesn’t mean that future won’t arrive with a bang. Or that Wiggins won’t be a big part of it. It just means that when it arrives Wiggins will be joining, not building from the ground up.
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