TORONTO — Canadian senior men’s basketball head coach Jay Triano knows he has a talented bunch on his hands.
“There’s going to be a day where I’m going to have to cut an NBA player,” Triano said.
For now, however, the Canadian coach doesn’t have to worry about that and is solely focused on the short training camp he has put together for Team Canada at Air Canada Centre that runs until July 22 before the team embarks on a gruelling 11-game, 20-day European exhibition schedule that includes a span of six games in six days in three different countries.
Sound tough? That’s because it’s supposed to be.
“We want it to be challenging,” Triano told the Canadian Press shortly after the exhibition schedule was first released. “You’ve got to go through these tough times in order to build your team.”
Last summer, Canada failed to qualify for the 2014 FIBA World Cup, which will start on August 30, resulting in the men’s team without any truly meaningful competition to play this summer.
At the time this was seen as a pretty significant setback as the team features a number of young, promising NBA players that could eventually set the nation up for a podium finish at the Olympic Games given the right amount of time to grow together.
Therefore, to supplement the lack of competition, Triano and his staff devised a European gauntlet in hopes of acclimating some members on the roster in order to prepare for the summer of 2015 when Canada will have a shot to qualify for the 2016 Games.
“That’s the primary reason why we’re here, to get these guys some experience for next summer,” senior men’s team general manager Steve Nash said after the first day of training camp. “We’re a very young team, a team with very little international experience. A lot of our players who have big roles on our team have no experience on the highest level internationally — the rules, the refereeing, the competition is completely different.”
Nash, a two-time NBA MVP and alumni of the program, was working with some of the players on Sunday and found himself in pretty familiar territory given the stage his career is in now.
“I’ve been a mentor for about 10 years now,” the Los Angeles Lakers guard said. “I’m 40 and I’ve been a veteran in the NBA for a long time, so I’ve had a lot of young players play under me and I’ve always tried to be there to share and help and give back.”
One such player who could benefit from the wealth of experience Nash has to offer is Cory Joseph. The newly minted NBA champion is turning 23 in about a month’s time but he will be looked upon as a leader for the upcoming exhibition trip and beyond.
Despite this apparent pressure, however, the Ajax, Ont., native doesn’t seem phased and is just focused on getting Team Canada right for 2015’s qualifying run.
“We definitely know we have a lot of talent, but we haven’t done anything yet so we’ve got to be able to put it together,” Joseph said. “Last year we went down there and we didn’t do as well as we wanted to, so we want to get back on our feet and we’ve got to get serious, we’ve got to qualify for the Olympics and do well.”
A big part of qualifying for the Olympics will definitely come down to the roster, and, perhaps because this is only an exhibition schedule, the team heading on the big European road trip likely won’t be the same one next summer.
While the roster won’t officially be released until after the camp, the team Triano will be bringing with him will look very similar to the one from last summer, headlined by NBA players Joseph, Andrew Nicholson and Kelly Olynyk.
The most noteworthy absences include the Cleveland Cavalier trio of Andrew Wiggins, Tristan Thompson and Anthony Bennett, as well as the two other Canadians drafted in the first round of this year’s NBA draft, Nik Stauskas and Tyler Ennis.
When asked about this, Nash explained that there is a lot of interest from everyone in the national team, but the program ultimately didn’t want to interfere with those players’ NBA commitments.
“Everyone’s shown interest but for various reasons it’s not that simple,” Nash said. “You’ve got interests of the club, the players’ level of health, fatigue, but first and foremost we want our young guys to be in good stead with their team. So I think some more guys could be here but right now they’re trying to fulfill their obligations to their team.”
Despite saying all that, Nash seemed to allude to the fact that Wiggins could be joining the team this summer.
“Andrew’s shown a lot of interest, right now he’s got a lot of attention on him, and a phenomenally difficult and trying last year, but his team is also really concerned about what he does and when he does it,” the NBA’s oldest player said. “But Andrew’s shown interest, the Cavs have shown interest and there’s a chance he could be here. I know he wants to be here, but right now he has to fulfill his obligations to his team first and foremost and then, once he’s in good footing there, we can work on getting him in here.”
Wiggins possibly playing this summer is a very exciting prospect but should he not, Triano’s squad will still have a few fresh faces in college standouts Melvin Ejim and Jordan Bachynski, who will both join the team after their NBA Summer League duties are finished.
During the course of this exhibition run, expect to see a number of funky lineups out there for experimental and developmental purposes. Triano said he’s going to look into a possible platoon system that will likely see players on for five minutes and then off for five minutes in different combinations.
This was a strategy that worked really well for the Canadian developmental team last summer in China and with players like Phil and Thomas Scrubb and Brady Heslip from that team in camp, this idea should be adapted to quite easily.
Canada kicks off its exhibition schedule on July 24 in Slovenia and will play its last game against Angola in Spain on August 12.
