Adedokun Waliyu 
There were many worthy candidates for Postmedia’s team of the year for 2023, but one stood tall — literally — over the competition.
The senior men’s national basketball team had a historic run this summer and finally fulfilled some of the potential of this “Golden Generation” of Canadian hoopers, which has seen numerous players become NBA or college players and stars.
Led by Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the first NBA superstar from this country since Steve Nash, but with contributions from just about everyone on the roster, Canada snapped an Olympic drought stretching back to 2000 in qualifying for the Paris 2024 Games and earned a FIBA medal at the senior men’s level for the first time since 1936.
Yes, 1936. Before the second World War.
The hard-earned bronze came thanks to a win over World No. 1 USA, Canada’s first triumph over the Americans at a FIBA World Cup.
The team might have fallen to eventual runner-up Serbia in the semifinals, but along the way it also knocked off No. 2 Spain (twice, if you factor in an exhibition game before the tournament), blew out No. 5 France by 30 points, easily dispatched Slovenia — which was led by perennial NBA MVP candidate Luka Doncic — and split two tuneup games with the eventual champion Germans in Germany.
All in all, the group brought some swagger back and followed up on an outstanding 11-1 run in World Cup qualifying, serving notice that Canada is now a legitimate medal threat.
It all started on the heels of some familiar heartbreak. In the past, Canada had fallen just short of returning to the Olympics.
Whether it was a stunning loss to Venezuela in Mexico City in 2015 or an overtime defeat to the Czech Republic at home in Victoria in 2021, the end result had been a single Olympic berth since 1988.
After the loss to the Czechs, Canada’s brass, led by general manager Rowan Barrett — a starter on the 2000 team that could have won a medal with a bit of luck — and then-head coach Nick Nurse instituted a new requirement: Interested players, no matter how lofty their resume, had to make a three-year commitment to the program.
They’d play three straight summers or at least attend training camp if hurt or involved in contract talks that would prevent them from suiting up.
“Just needing continuity within our group,” Barrett said in an interview with Postmedia. “That was a key driver to our success. We believed that we have enough talent, enough ability, but the left hand kind of needs to know what the right hand is doing. Especially if you’re going to play international basketball against teams that have been together (for half a decade or longer),” Barrett said.
Gilgeous-Alexander, NBA veterans Kelly Olynyk (Toronto-born, Kamloops raised) and Dwight Powell (Toronto), Dillon Brooks (Mississauga) and Barrett’s son, RJ Barrett (Mississauga), led the way.
Jamal Murray (Kitchener) went to camp but couldn’t play, but the group came together spectacularly with what they had, mixing a dangerous offence with a smothering defence powered by the pesky Brooks, Gilgeous-Alexander and the aptly nicknamed “Lu the Beast” Lugentz Dort, of Montreal.
Canadian team celebrates after winning the FIBA Basketball World Cup third-place game.
Only weeks before Canada was to travel to Europe for exhibitions ahead of the trip to Asia for the tournament, Nurse threw them a major curveball: The recently ousted Toronto Raptors head coach, newly signed with the Philadelphia 76ers, would no longer be able to see his own commitment through.
After a search, Canada settled on a well-regarded NBA assistant Jordi Fernandez of the Sacramento Kings.
It ended up being a masterstroke and a key part of the eventual success. Fernandez got his players to buy in, made the right decisions play-calling and rotation-wise and proved he was the correct person for the job.
“Obviously changing the coach a month out before we started camp is not ideal,” Barrett said. “We made sure that we surrounded him with much of the staff that had already been there multiple years, so they can also fill in where the strengths were where the challenges were, so that he didn’t have to kind of start from scratch.
“And I think all those things kind of helped our coach hit the ground running. And I think our players because of the culture that we’ve built in the continuity overall that we built, were more inclined to trust this new coach that was coming in.”
Barrett said that beating the European powers on their own turf in the exhibitions gave the team confidence in itself and in Fernandez.
“We’re playing, the number one team in the world, the number three team in the world and we’re beating them on their home floors, and the coach is cool as a cucumber in that moment. I think that was maybe just the last piece that the players needed to know,” Barrett said. “Many kudos to (Fernandez) who was not afraid to challenge the players. Push the players, drive them, do what needed to be done.It didn’t matter who you were, how big that name was on the back of the jersey.
“The name on the front of the jersey, which is Canada, was paramount overall, and it rolls out from the first day all the way through this.”
One more winning element was Canada Basketball’s boxing analogy. The decision was made for the team to not come in as some sort of “conquering hero,” they agreed.
“We’re not Mike Tyson that’s knocking you out in the first round,” Barrett said. “We’re gonna have to hit you to the body and hit you to the body and we’re gonna have to take some shots as well. We’re going to keep hitting into the body and eventually we believe with that constant work that constant toughness, over time, eventually, your arms are going to fall to protect your body and once that happens, we need the laser shot right between the eyes. And I think that’s what you see with Shai hitting the shot against Spain.”
President and CEO Michael Bartlett’s finishing touch was purchasing boxing gloves and placing them in the stalls of each of the players.
That resulted in one of the enduring images of the team, Brooks, who had been ejected after frustrating Doncic, waiting for his teammates in the tunnel while wearing his gloves after the triumph over Slovenia.
“That was us, I think that’s what we showed on the floor,” Barrett said. “And I think that’s why so many Canadians took to this team this summer. A team that had guts, that was tough, that was gritty, that you just couldn’t count out.”
And one that was a deserving choice as Postmedia’s Team of the Year.
