Ask any high-level Canadian basketball player about Nathaniel Mitchell, and odds are that they have spent countless hours in the gym working out with the 36-year-old Toronto native, with Mitchell putting them through drills, rebounding for them, and developing their games.
Mitchell, who is an assistant coach with the Toronto Raptors and a long-time assistant with Canada Basketball, has worked with everyone from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to Dalano Banton to Emanuel Miller, who he will coach this week at Canada Basketball’s inaugural GLOBL JAM tournament, a showcase of the best Under-23 basketball nations right here in Toronto.
Mitchell will serve as the head coach for the Canadian men’s GLOBL JAM team, which includes highly-touted NBA prospect Leonard Miller and his brother Emanuel, University of Texas guard Marcus Carr, Creighton guard Ryan Nembhard, and a bunch of big, versatile, high-level college athletes who have committed their summers to representing Canada in what will likely be the first time playing competitive basketball at home in front of friends and family in a long time.
I spoke to Mitchell about his coaching journey, the importance of hosting a tournament on home soil, the identity of this year’s team, and the underrated pipeline of talent in Canada.
Sportsnet: Tell me about your basketball upbringing. How did you fall in love with the sport?
Nathaniel Mitchell: I mean, all my brothers played high school basketball in Toronto. I had one brother that played University basketball at the U SPORTS level, he went to Dalhousie and was the U SPORTS rookie of the year. Those guys put the ball in my hand. They used to get mad at me because I stole their indoor ball and played outside with it all the time. And that's kind of where the love of the game started. Watching games, going to the Lawrence Heights Community Centre and watching everybody play — that's kind of where it came from.
Now at just 36 years old you're an assistant coach with your hometown Toronto Raptors and heavily involved with Canada Basketball, becoming the head coach of the U-23 men’s team at GLOBL JAM. How did you transition from player to a coach?
I remember being in eighth grade and handing my coach plays to try and run. I played all throughout high school at Oakwood Collegiate Institute, and in my last year I was actually an assistant coach for our junior team on top of playing. I coached an Ontario Basketball Association team as well. And an AAU team. I always loved coaching and leading workouts with my team or with my guys that were around me, and so that's where it kind of came from. Honestly, as a point guard, all my coaches I ever played for told me I was gonna be a good coach.
Finally, I got a chance to be a grad assistant at Fresno State and then from there I started volunteering with Canada Basketball, literally just rebounding, working out guys before and after practices, wiping the floors and doing those things. And it kind of led to getting opportunities, where one of the coaches that I was volunteering for was Scott Morrison, an assistant coach on the junior men's team at the time (and currently an assistant to Mitchell at GLOBL JAM). He ended up getting the head coaching job in Maine with the Celtics D League affiliate, and he offered me a job. That was my entry level job in the D League. Then I came to the Raptors 905 when they started their organization in 2015, and I did that for three years.
I was still working with Canada Basketball, moving up the rankings as an assistant and starting to get a chance to work with the senior team. And then after three years with the Raptors 905, I went to the Charlotte Hornets and was there for three years as an assistant coach in the NBA, while still maintaining my status on the Canadian senior national team and my relationships with a lot of the young Canadians, working them out when I had the time. That kind of helped me get to where I am today, going back to the Raptors as an assistant coach last year and now coaching Team Canada in my hometown.
“I love seeing others improve. I love seeing others win.”
What does it mean for you to break through as a head coach in your hometown?
It's unreal. It’s a great opportunity. I'm grateful and humbled. And at the same time, getting to coach some of these guys — I worked with them when they were younger and some of them were on that team that I was volunteering with years ago like Emanuel Miller — and now I'm the head coach, you know what I mean? I just think it's really important for me to realize where I came from: from the ground up, knowing that I worked pretty hard to get to this spot. But there's people that paved the way for me to help make sure I got this opportunity. There’s too many coaches to name, and I don’t want to forget anybody, but I can't thank those guys enough because they had so much influence in my coaching career.
What is it about coaching that you love? What’s your favourite part about it?
I love seeing others improve. I love seeing others win. There's nothing better than trying to help somebody through a situation or teaching them something, and then they do it in a game and they point to you like: Yo I remember! And to me that is probably the best part. And knowing that they go back to school or to their teams after the summers and when they come back they're like, ’Man, the coach thinks that I'm ready to play and I'm prepared.’ And you can't take that for granted. These young guys right here on this team, if nothing else I hope they all go back to school a better basketball player.
How would you define your coaching style?
My coaching style is a combination of probably all the coaches I've ever coached for. I take a little bit of something from everybody, try to piece it together and make it my own. I just want to be creative with as much accountability as possible. Accountability for my players and for myself. I want to hold myself to the same standard I hold my players to, and I want them to feel at ease and make good decisions: I need to make good decisions and they need to make good decisions. And it's important that we're always growing and learning. So my style is based on growing, learning, being aggressive, and continuing to get better.
I know that this is somewhat of a development team for the senior team and that the hope is that some of these young guys eventually play for the senior team, say at the 2028 Olympics. So how do you balance developing the talent with the desire to win this tournament?
I think the best answer to that question is the fact that winning is a part of development. How do you win? You have to learn how to make winning plays. You have to learn how to not make mistakes down to stretch your games. And in order to do that, you gotta put these young guys in situations where they feel like they're learning that stuff. You're trying to teach them in practice, put them in game situations, see the mistakes corrected, and hopefully at the same time, the quality of the possessions lead to wins. I think if you're doing that more times than not you should be in a good position. But yeah, we're gonna develop these guys and we want them to play in 2028. But in order to do that, they have to develop a winning mentality, a winning attitude. And these guys are coming here with the expectation to win. And I think from the senior team on down, Nick Nurse speaks about it a lot: 'expect to win.' And so the message here is no different.
You mentioned how you’re getting the opportunity to coach in your hometown. I imagine most of these players haven’t played competitively in Canada since at least high school, because we lose our best basketball talent to the States so early in their careers. How important is it to have this tournament on home soil and to enable Canadian fans to watch these guys play in person?
Yeah, I think it's important to have it here. I think it's important for our community to support these guys. I think the biggest thing with Canada Basketball is we always want these guys to come back and play and represent our country. And we as a country and a community need to make sure we're coming out and supporting them, because when we put an environment together that they feel is amazing and they're playing for the country, I guarantee that they will all want to come back and continue to represent.
Lastly, you know the young Canadian talent better than anybody, and you’ve worked with all of them. But are you ever still surprised at the depth of talent that Canada has coming down the pipeline?
Yes, 100 per cent. I mean, this is the Under-23 tournament and we probably have three or four guys that are on our senior team that are Under-23 (and therefore not with us). We're still able to put together a really good team here. And so that in itself speaks volumes to the depth of our talent, and where we're going, especially with our young players.
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