The Next Generation of Canadian Ballers Has Arrived | Complex CA
If anything, that loss provided extra fuel for this crop of young Canadians to get over the hump as they look forward to representing their country in the following summers in order to qualify for Paris 2024. While injury concerns and NBA free agency often get in the way of these commitments—as they did last summer, with key players such as Gilgious-Alexander, Brooks, Clarke, Birch, Boucher, Murray, and more not playing—everything the Canadian stars have said points in the right direction: that there will be a deeper and more talented group than ever representing Canada in the next three summers, where they will look to make a push to qualify for the 2023 World Cup and then achieve a certain rank within it to qualify for the 2024 Olympics without the need for a last-chance qualifying tournament.
It starts with getting a group together that will commit long-term in order to build continuity, because as ex-Team Canada general manager Nash told me, national team success “can take generations in a sense because our players really get to play such little international basketball together, especially with the new (qualifying) windows. So, it’s very hard for them to kind of form those bonds, that continuity, that understanding of what it takes that Argentina formed or our 2000 Olympic team formed.
“That is the challenge now is how do you get a core group of guys playing together? Because we haven’t seen it. We haven’t had all our top guys available.”
Team Canada head coach Nurse seems to be on the same page, saying that the only way he was interested in coaching the team through 2024 if they committed to prioritize continuity through this Olympic cycle, finding a core group of guys who would commit through the next three summers and not just show up to play when the see fit, as has been the case in the past.
“The one thing that I do think is the same group of guys need to play together, right? So I think that’s one glaring step forward we could make there, that we have a group, they commit for some years, they go through some ups and downs, they go through some growing pains, they go through some learning… and you get to know what you’re capable of as that group. So, that would be my answer to speeding up the process right now,” Nurse says.
Canada Basketball CEO Michael Bartlett said recently that they are hoping to announce the “summer NBA core team” during the next World Cup qualifying window in late February, when the Canadian winter group will continue their 2023 World Cup qualifiers against the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The fact that there even is such a deep pool of Canadian players to choose from in both winter and summer windows says a lot about the growth of the game. But it remains to be seen if the players are just paying lip service or if this generation of Canadians truly do have the desire and dedication to commit to the program and to bring Canada back to the promised land.
Canadian men’s basketball team deserves praise and appreciation for answering the call | The Star
It’s been said a hundred times but it needs saying again today.
There are a group of Canadian basketball players and coaches who deserve all the accolades and credit for answering their country’s call in the perplexing FIBA World Cup qualification process.
They were at it again on the weekend, flying from all over the place to Santo Domingo to play – and win – a couple of games to help Canada move forward in its inevitable march to a World Cup spot.
I don’t know how many of these players, if any at all, will ultimately represent Canada at the World Cup in Philippines, Indonesia and Japan next year but it is to their credit that they are more than willing to help the process along without any guarantee of playing in the main event.
And they did it in first-class fashion.
The two wins on the weekend – a rout of Virgin Islands on Sunday after being Dominican Republic at home on Saturday – guarantees Canada will move on to a second group and while it was, in my opinion, a formality, it had to be done and the Canadians did it.
Maybe the most impressive point of the entire weekend was how composed and tough Canada was in beating the hosts on Saturday.
I watched the game and it was typical FIBA. Rough, full of cheap shots and bad officiating and for the Canadians to maintain their composure in a hostile environment being jobbed by the officials was something of which the players, coaches and Canada Basketball can be supremely proud.
The next, and final, two games of this process are supposed to be played in Canada this summer and the timing should allow some of the country’s NBA players to take part.
That’ll be nice and I’m sure that fans wherever the games are played will be excited.
But if I’m Canada Basketball, I am starting today to make sure every player who has appeared in even a single game so far, every player who has travelled and lived in bubbles and represented the country so admirably is flown to wherever the games are so they can at least be feted by fans and the organization.
Achiuwa provides the defensive fluidity to give the Raptors some presence on the back end of their aggressive schemes. More than Birch or maybe even Boucher, Achiuwa can go up vertically and protect the rim a little bit, something the Raptors badly lack. He is also nimble enough to shift over to get in good position on opponents’ drives, although he can become foul prone.
“He’s got to kind of make up his mind one way or the other. He’s either got to get his hands out of there (to not foul) or he’s got to really get his hands in (to wrap up an opponent) there so there isn’t a chance for an and-1 (basket),” Nurse said. “But he’s there. I thought he played a lot of those good tonight and they probably could have went either way.
“That’s a good sign because our bigs need to rim protect. Even if they’re not necessarily shot blockers, they still need to use their size and strength and body position to protect the rim.”
Defence isn’t, and hasn’t been, the problem for Achiuwa. In fact, it is the main reason the Raptors were interested in him in Kyle Lowry sign-and-trade negotiations. He has all the physical tools to be solid on that end, and his instincts are already pretty good. The Raptors are 4.4 points per 100 possessions stingier with Achiuwa on the floor versus off of it this season.
Those instincts just don’t translate to the other end, and his touch has been non-existent, which means he gives most of that defensive advantage back when the Raptors have the ball. He finishes close to 60 percent of his attempts near the rim, but that falls all the way to 33.4 percent between 3 and 10 feet from the rim on 114 attempts. When judging for how many attempts he uses, he is by far the least efficient finisher of the Raptors’ “big men.” He does not possess the softest hands, either, which hurts because he is the Raptors’ most obvious lob threat.
Raptors’ problems fixable heading into Nets home-and-home | The Star
The tendency to overreact to bad games on consecutive nights is perhaps legitimate, but it’s not as if a lack of competitive desire is a common trait for a group that played hard consistently through the first 57 games.
And maybe that’s the saving grace: The Raptors have been good far, far more often than they’ve been bad this season.
“If we win these last two games, the narrative and the story would be completely different,” VanVleet said. “So, we come out and play like ass and everybody wants to jump to conclusions and make deep dives, and break down what went wrong and who did what, and I shouldn’t have played in the all-star game and Pascal (Siakam) was on vacation … it is what it is.
“I believe in this team. I believe we’ll be back, playing at the level we need to be playing at, hopefully sooner than later. And I take full responsibility for the poor performances, and I’m looking forward to getting this team back to where we need to be.”
It won’t be easy, though.
The Raptors face difficult games Monday in Brooklyn and Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena against a Nets team that registered a stirring win in Milwaukee on Saturday night.
With Brooklyn now just a game behind Toronto in the race for seventh and eighth in the jam-packed East, there is a small sense of urgency to at least play better than in Charlotte and Atlanta.
“We know we have a capability of playing a heck of a lot better,” Nurse said. “We’ve got to start digging in. We have to get our focus back, our sharpness back, etc. and get ready to go.”
Showing it. Not talking about it.
Raptors’ Fred VanVleet confident this latest display isn’t who they are | Toronto Sun
So when a leader like VanVleet, a guy who has been with this team as it built to become NBA champions and has been at the forefront as it builds back up, says the Raptors will right this ship, then it carries some weight.
What VanVleet basically said after a lengthy post-game meeting Saturday night was that they won’t let the current trend continue.
“You guys can overreact and write whatever you want, I really don’t care,” a somewhat heated VanVleet said post-game in Atlanta. “If we win these last two games the narrative and the story would be completely different, so, we come out and play like ass and everybody wants to jump to conclusions and make deep dives and break down what went wrong and who did what and I shouldn’t have played in the all-star game and Pascal (Siakam) was on vacation, like, it is what it is.
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“All-star break is in the middle of the season, we didn’t come out of the gate performing like we wanted to, so, write what you will, (but) I believe in this team, I believe we’ll be back, playing at the level we need to be playing at, hopefully sooner than later and I take full responsibility for the poor performances and I’m looking forward to getting this team back to where we need to be.”How quickly that turnaround comes though will depend on a few factors outside of what they can physically control, VanVleet’s sore right knee right at the top of that list.
The fact that VanVleet is even talking publicly about the bruise on his right knee that stubbornly refuses to heal speaks to how difficult it has made things for him. VanVleet is normally a guy who refuses to even identify where he’s hurting.
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He’ll head into an away and home back-to-back starting tonight in Brooklyn again listed as questionable for the game because of that knee. He has been questionable both the past two games as well but has gutted through.Also key to coming out of this funk is a return to normal health by VanVleet’s right hand man and co-leader Pascal Siakam.
