Canada’s potential finally being realized with early FIBA World Cup success

As far as proof of concept goes, the Canadian men’s senior national team is nailing every detail.

There are no typos in the tweets, the jokes are landing as intended, all the online orders have arrived on time, and everything looks just as good as it did on Instagram.

This is the way it was supposed to be: Field a team with a good cross-section of Canada’s best basketball talent, give them the right support and infrastructure, get a quality head coach to lead them, and let the whole thing cook.

The result would be Canada looking every inch a world-class basketball team and a threat for a medal and more in major international competitions, allowing the entire Canadian basketball scene to bask in feel-good from here on in.

Everyone attached to the program believed it. Everyone who has watched the program believed it. The players believed it, too.

But like a start-up that kept running into financing problems and staffing issues and seeming to always just miss their window of opportunity, the senior men’s team could never quite get the concept everyone believed in so strongly up and running.

But who knew it would be this easy?

Sacrilege to say, perhaps, but here we are. It’s hard to downplay Canada’s quality or its very real chance to stand on top of the podium in Manila when this all wraps up on Sept. 10. Not after the way they have played so far. The Canadians are playing as well or better than everyone believed they could. Maybe even dreamed.

Canada has three wins at the FIBA Basketball World Cup in three tries but there is a long way to go. At a minimum, achieving the primary goal and finishing as first or second among the seven teams from the Americas in the 32-country field — to secure qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics — is going to require one more win and likely two. One more win in the second group stage should get Canada to the quarter-finals. A win there and Canada is playing for a medal.

It will get more difficult from here, in theory. But by dismantling previously undefeated Latvia 101-75 thanks to a dominant second half — Canada led by a point heading into the break and were up by 20 midway through the fourth quarter — the red-and-white finished 3-0 in the first group stage, marking the first time the men have won a group at the World Cup or the Olympics.

And while there are still games to be played on Wednesday, it seems like a safe bet that Canada’s gaudy plus-110-point differential will be the best among the 16 teams that advance. Lithuania is plus-76 after three games and the USA — plus-55 through two games — would need to beat Jordan by 56 in its last game to top Canada’s margin.

Possible, but far from a sure thing.

The bigger point is that no one at the World Cup is playing better than Canada is right now. It’s a plain fact. And given that this squad has had just eight games together — five friendlies and three in tournament play under newly installed head coach Jordi Fernandez — it’s fair to expect more improvement.

So far Canada has ploughed through France — the defending Olympic silver medallists — for a 30-point win that made Les Blues look like they were playing their first major competition together.

And after taking care of business against out-classed Lebanon — and setting a World Cup record with 44 assists in the process — Canada shook off an early flurry against Latvia Tuesday morning to shut down the hottest shooting team in the tournament to finish undefeated in the group stage for the first time, as second-place Latvia fell to 2-1 in Group H.

This was what has been hoped for so many times in the recent past. On paper, the Canadians could have done this already, but they never did.

Not in 2015 when a team with nine NBA players — but all 23 or younger — arrived at the Tournament of the Americas and came up short in heartbreaking fashion. Or when the players couldn’t come together quickly enough at Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in 2016 and 2021. Or when Canada’s best opted out of the World Cup team in China in 2019.

Through all the disappointments there remained a simple belief: If and when Canada's best came together they could get it done.

The group that’s in Jakarta isn’t Canada’s very best. In Andrew Wiggins and Jamal Murray, it is missing two of the country’s biggest talents.

But in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Canada has the best player in the tournament not named Luka Doncic.

Ably supported by quality NBA talent — like his cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker (46 per cent from three on nearly nine attempts a game in 23 minutes off the bench), national team veteran Kelly Olynyk (15 points, 6 rebounds and 3.7 assists for the tournament), RJ Barrett (22 points against Latvia), all-NBA defender Dillon Brooks, big man Dwight Powell and what is proving to be a useful bench made up of veteran European pros — Gilgeous-Alexander is getting the right amount of help.

And when needed, the Oklahoma City Thunder star can take over the game. He did it with a 13-point third quarter against France as Canada turned a tense halftime result into a 30-point laugher and perhaps even more impressively against Latvia when he scored 16 of game-high 27 points in the third quarter, most of it on self-created looks against a packed Latvian defence that Gilgeous-Alexander was able to break down with his uncanny ability to change speeds and rise up over flat-footed defenders.

It wasn’t a one-man show. After Canada had opened up a 10-point lead to start the fourth quarter, Canada went on an 11-4 run with Gilgeous-Alexander resting, and former Carlton University star Phil Scrubb knocking down one of his two threes as he finished plus-15 in his 10 minutes of floor time, while Olynyk got five of his 15 points in the surge.

It was the third-straight team win for Canada, each in its own way more impressive than the last.

Nothing has been secured yet. You don’t win a medal for winning your group, no matter how well you are playing. Even nailing down a spot in the 2024 Olympics will require more of what Canada has delivered so far.

But what the Canadian men have done to this juncture is what so many believed they could do if the circumstances were right.

There is no more proof needed. The concept is sound. All that’s needed now is a couple more wins.