TORONTO — From the moment Tomáš Satoranský dashed the Olympic dreams of the Canadian men’s basketball team at a qualifying tournament in 2021, the message was simple and consistent: The program needed more of a commitment from its best players to get back to the sport’s biggest international stage.
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Canada had more talent than most countries, but not so much more that it could ignore the cohesion and chemistry aspects that so many other nations ace to outperform their own talent. Accordingly, the team’s general manager, Rowan Barrett, and then-coach, Nick Nurse, named 14 players to a “summer core” that would be in the team’s training camps in the following three summers, leading up to the Paris Olympics. Without a three-year commitment, no NBA players could be certain they would get a spot on the 12-man Olympic roster, should such a roster exist.
The plan worked, at least well enough: Canada earned its first berth in the Olympic men’s basketball tournament in last summer’s World Cup, ultimately winning the bronze medal. As the program named the 20 players who will fight for the 12 spots to go to France this summer on Wednesday, it was time to judge not only how well the idea of the three-year commitment worked, but how fair it ended up being.
Here are the 20 players coming to Canada Basketball men's team training camp. 12 will go to the Olympics. pic.twitter.com/MJnpolT4Um
— (((Eric Koreen))) (@ekoreen) June 19, 2024
This is Canada Basketball, so things were messy. Ultimately, this version of messy ended up being better than previous versions.
“I’d much rather have a conversation about the bevy of players that we have and the difficulty of not being able to invite (some players) than not having the players and wondering why they’re not showing up,” Barrett said Wednesday. “I’d much rather this conversation.”
The way Barrett handled things resulted in the deepest pool of Canadian players available for selection. There is no arguing with that, although it might have happened regardless of Barrett’s methods. Canada is producing so many more world-class athletes than it used to that it is not even notable that NBAers like Portland Trail Blazers guard Dalano Banton, Dallas Mavericks wing Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Toronto Raptors forward Chris Boucher and Memphis Grizzlies big man Brandon Clarke aren’t in camp. Not that long ago, that might have been crushing.
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Still, there are two players, Cory Joseph and Kevin Pangos, who were named to the original group of 14 who aren’t in camp at all. Joseph told Sportsnet he wanted to be there, even with the possibility that he wouldn’t make the final roster, but he did not get an invite. Joseph hasn’t played for the senior team since being named to the core, with injuries and free agency to blame. Perhaps there were some bad feelings about Joseph not staying with the squad last year for the World Cup, although the official word then was that he had a back injury and the decision was mutual.
At the beginning of the process, Barrett said the core players would have the first crack at roster spots should they be able to participate. After the World Cup last year, head coach Jordi Fernández, who replaced Nurse, said the players who helped Canada win bronze last summer would be in line for Olympic spots.
Well, 10 members of last summer’s team are in camp. The tone is different now.
“Whoever’s coming in here, they have to try out for this team,” Barrett said. “I think Jordi has been very, very clear. You gotta try out. We’re not giving any spots regardless of how big the name is that’s coming in, that hasn’t been here. … They’ll work as hard as they can and they’ll come in healthy. Why should it be any other way?”
Barrett’s stated method will make those hoping for an Olympic medal happy — winning trumps everything, including feelings, which the general manager acknowledged. While he didn’t say that Canada Basketball hasn’t lived up to its commitment in the precise way it said it would in 2022, it could end up being a matter of semantics more than anything else, with apologies to Joseph and some others.
There are five locks for the team, health pending, who were both part of the original summer core and will have played for Canada in all three summers: Luguentz Dort, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Kelly Olynyk and Dwight Powell. International veteran Melvin Ejim will be the likely sixth in that group. RJ Barrett didn’t play in 2022, when he was negotiating a rookie extension, but played last summer. Dillon Brooks wasn’t part of the original core but played last summer; Jamal Murray hasn’t played at all because of his injuries and short summers, but he has been at every training camp and is likely to play. Zach Edey will be there if Canada selects him and the team that drafts him next week clears him to play. That is nine players.
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That leaves three spots. If you wanted to honour the World Cup appearances, non-NBAers Kyle Alexander, Trae Bell-Haynes and Phil Scrubb, who all played in 2022 and 2023, would be there. On the other hand, should players such as Indiana Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard, who was preparing to enter the league when Canada Basketball asked for commitments, or Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins, who has dealt with a title run, negotiating a new contract and family issues over the last two years, be penalized for prioritizing the realities that come with NBA life?
Those players, among others, have played for Canada at the senior level and younger levels, too.
“We’re gonna play really good teams. These teams are gonna reload,” Barrett said. “They’re gonna have their very, very best there. And when you get into the deep, deep areas of these competitions and the guts of these games, they have some challenges. They have some questions that you need to answer on the court. So we’re trying to build something that can give us the opportunity to answer all questions when we get into these games.”
If Barrett is still in charge for the next Olympic cycle, it will be interesting to see if there are any changes to the process. This has been imperfect, and some players have, or will have, the right to be angry about it.
At the same time, it is nice to see Canada Basketball be ruthless about trying to win. As fans of the program know, these opportunities are not guaranteed.
(Top photo: Yong Teck Lim / Getty Images)
Eric Koreen is the lead Raptors writer for The Athletic. Previously, he has covered the Raptors and the NBA for the National Post, VICE Sports and Sportsnet. Follow Eric on Twitter @ekoreen
