Don’t Sleep on Canada’s Basketball Team at the Olympics

Earlier this summer Canada Basketball, the national governing body for hoops north of the 49th parallel, invited alumni from its last five Olympic teams—1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 2000—to spend time with the current crop of Canadian Olympians, who were in a Toronto-area training camp prepping for the Paris Games. That’s right, Canada, currently home to some of the best basketball players in the world, hasn’t qualified for the Olympics in about a quarter century.

One of those alums, three-time NBA champion Bill Wennington—a role player on Michael Jordan’s title-winning squads in Chicago in the 1990s—was struck by the team’s depth of talent and camaraderie. When Wennington played for Canada at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, he was the only player on the roster who would go on to play in the NBA (back then, only college players could compete in the Olympics). 

Today, all but one member of Team Canada has suited up in the NBA, including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder, who finished second in the MVP voting this season, and Jamal Murray, the second-best player on the 2023 NBA champion Denver Nuggets.

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Since 1976, Canada’s top result has been a fourth-place finish, twice: on home court during the ‘76 Montreal Games, and in Los Angeles eight years later, when the Iron Curtain countries boycotted (Canada, along with the United States and many other nations, boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games). Wennington and his fellow alums shared meals with the team and watched practices. “They're pumped up, and they're excited about this opportunity,” says Wennington, an affable brown-bearded backup center during his prime NBA years; today he’s a Bulls broadcaster and sports a bushy white horseshoe ‘stache. 

This time around, a fourth-place finish will sting. “I don't want to put any pressure on them,” says Wennington. “But they know that they're being held to a higher standard right now.” 

Canada, who defeated the United States in the bronze-medal game at last year’s FIBA World Cup, is one of the few teams in the Olympic tournament with legitimate chance to give the Americans—which have won four straight Olympic gold medals and assembled roster laden with likely Hall of Famers and established all-time greats (LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Jason Tatum, Anthony Davis, on and on)—fits. The country is now a reliable export of top-tier NBA talent, having come a long way from Wennington’s youth growing up in Montreal, when hockey was the undisputed king and basketball was something you occasionally saw on television.

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NBA expansion into Canada, which began in 1995 when the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies made their debut, helped drive interest in basketball. While the Grizzlies soon resettled in Memphis, the Raptors thrived in Toronto, thanks in large part to the standout acrobatics of Vince Carter, who starred for the team in the early 2000s. British Columbia native Steve Nash won back-to-back MVP honors in 2005 and 2006, further boosting the game’s popularity up north. 

If Bob and Doug McKenzie, the fictional beer-guzzling, hockey-loving brothers who wore beanies, called each other hosers, and hosted a show called “The Great White North” on the sketch-comedy program SCTV, shaped perceptions about Canada for a prior generation, perhaps Gilgeous-Alexander and Murray, one of the best basketball backcourts you’ll ever see on the world stage, are more appropriate avatars for today’s Canada. “So many people forget that Canada is a multiethnic melting pot,” says Leo Rautins, the former Canadian national-team player who now serves as a TV analyst for Raptors games. “The makeup of our country leads to a lot of good things.” 

It all starts with Gilgeous-Alexander, known as SGA, who grew up in Hamilton, Ontario; his mother, Charmaine, was also an Olympian, having run the 400 m for Antigua and Barbuda at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Gilgeous-Alexander, who averaged 30.1 points per game this season, is the type of player who can carry a team on his back to gold. He plays a cerebral style, sizing up his opponents while keeping his dribble alive on a given possession before attacking. “He takes advantage of what’s being given to him,” says Wennington. “He's reading the spacing on the floor. He'll get to the rim. If he can’t get to the rim, he'll stop six feet away, he'll stop eight feet away, 10 feet away, 12 feet away, and make those shots.” 

Murray, another Ontario native who teams up with three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic on the Nuggets, is used to playing a strong second fiddle. But he can also take over a game when needed. “This kid’s a beast,” says Rautins. “In the fourth quarter, this guy is incredible.”  

SGA was asked recently how the pair would co-exist. “I drive,” he said. “He shoots.”

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Beyond the backcourt, Canada’s role players can get under opponents’ skin. Gilgeous-Alexander’s Thunder teammate Luguentz Dort, the son of Haitian immigrants who grew up in Montreal, is a relentless defender who can bang long-range shots. Dort has earned a nickname—“the Dorture Chamber”— for his defensive abilities. Dillon Brooks, who’s from Mississauga, Ontario, near Toronto, is the kind of player you hate to go up against. But when he’s on your team, you love him. The Houston Rockets forward is an irritating defender who also dropped 39 points against the United States at worlds a year ago. 

Canada’s potential weak spot in France is its length. Zach Edey, the 7 ft. 4 in. Purdue star who led the Boilermakers to the national championship game in April, withdrew from Olympic consideration in late June: the Memphis Grizzlies drafted him with the ninth overall pick, and he’s focusing on proving himself in the NBA summer league. Can’t blame Edey for trying to impress his new employer. An ankle injury bothered stretchy 6 ft. 7 in. perimeter defender and slasher Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors last season. He’s resting it this summer. 

Team Canada drew a difficult group for the first stage of play. They open up on July 27 against Giannis Antetokounmpo and Greece and also have to play Australia and Spain at the outset of the Olympic tournament. If Canada can survive these opponents and meets up with the United States in a knockout-round game, SGA and company will have to counteract America’s size advantage by picking up the offensive pace. “If you let the USA get back on defense, then they can stack the paint and make it tough,” says Wennington. “If you get out and run and get some easy transition buckets, that's the way you can win.”

In a recent interview with TIME, rapper Snoop Dogg—who’ll be working for NBC in Paris as a special Olympics correspondent—gave props to the Canadian team but stopped far short of predicting a title. “They got a shot to get to the gold-medal round, but they’re not going to win it,” Snoop said. “The USA is the dogs. We’re not going to lose to no puppies.”

While Wennington isn’t about to start a beef with Snoop—we could only be so lucky—he sees things differently. “I definitely disagree with that,” says Wennington, politely, as Canadians are wont to do. “They’ve been in big enough situations in their careers and life to understand what this is and step up to the moment.” 

All NBA season long, Wennington would log in his mind the Canadian players coming through Chicago or those he’d spot in visiting arenas—Kelly Olynyk and RJ Barrett of the Toronto Raptors, SGA, Murray, and others. This exercise built anticipation for the summer. “I’m extremely excited,” he says. “And I don't like getting excited like this, because I don't like to be let down.”

Don’t disappoint Bill, boys. Or British Columbia, Newfoundland, and all those hoser towns in between.