Canada faces daunting task in Olympic quest, but there are silver linings

Eric Smith and Micheal Grange discuss RJ Barrett and others committing to play for Team Canada and what could have been if these guys committed during FIBA World Cup plus much more.

Tuesday was a momentous day for Canada’s men’s basketball program with a commitment domino effect after Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray made it known he would be suiting up for Canada Basketball for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Victoria, B.C., in late June.

Oklahoma City Thunder leading scorer Shai Gilgeous-Alexander declared his commitment to the national team a few hours after Murray’s announcement, followed up by Gilgeous-Alexander’s cousin, New Orleans Pelicans guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker. New York Knicks rookie RJ Barrett joined that trio on Wednesday afternoon ahead of his first NBA game against his hometown Toronto Raptors.

This string of commitments came on the heels of other Canadian NBA players making known their intent to be in Victoria if given the call, including Memphis Grizzlies’ Dillon Brooks, Khem Birch of the Orlando Magic, plus the Toronto Raptors’ Chris Boucher and Oshae Brissett.

This is the opposite of what we saw from the FIBA Basketball World Cup earlier this year where there wasn’t as much buy-in from Canada’s top basketball players as it was an experience marred by many late drop outs.

Late drop outs can still happen in this case, of course, but for Tuesday evening, at least, the men’s program was flying high with optimism again leading into the official Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT) draw on Wednesday morning.

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And then the draw happened and the harsh reality of what an OQT actually entails hit like a ton of bricks.

Canada was drawn into a tournament along with strong European clubs Czech Republic and Turkey, a couple of mediocre teams in China and Uruguay and world elite Greece, meaning if Canada’s going to qualify for the Olympic Games, it’s very likely that road will have to go through the 2019 NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo.

A daunting task, for sure, but there are certainly some silver linings to be found for Canada, with the first being the team was drawn into the same Group A as Greece.

This is important to note because even though that means Canada will definitely face Greece, it doesn’t mean the team will have to beat Greece immediately. The competition format of these qualifying tournaments sees teams play a group stage first, with the top two group finishers advancing to the semifinals. As such, assuming Greece will take care of business against China, the only must-win game for Canada in the first round of the OQT will be their own matchup against China.

After that, however, Canada will be in a win-or-go-home situation for the remainder of the event. This is the brutal nature of these OQTs, where only the tournament winners earn an Olympic berth.

Looking at world rankings, Canada’s No. 21 isn’t all the impressive, but that, too, could be seen as an advantage.

Out of the four OQTs, the Victoria tournament features the lowest average world ranking, but many still pegged it as an “OQT of Death,” and for good reason.

Canada’s world ranking is deceptive because the team has never fielded it’s best roster. If all goes according to plan, however, with the advantages of being a host nation, Team Canada head coach Nick Nurse should have a full deck of cards to work with, something that should terrify the other nations in this tournament as Canada has the most NBA talent outside of the United States.

So, another positive way of looking at the OQT is to flip from thinking Canada’s been drawn into a den of wolves to believing that these other teams have been forced into the ring with the big bad wolf that is Canada.

The OQT in Victoria takes place from June 23-28.

But before we learn the fate of Canada’s men’s basketball team, the Canadian women’s hoops squad will play for a spot into the Tokyo Games from Feb. 6-9 in Ostend, Belgium.

FIBA hosted the women’s OQT draw on Wednesday morning as well, and Canada was drawn into a tournament alongside FIBA-ranked No. 9, and host nation, Belgium, No. 10 Japan and No. 22 Sweden.

The Canadian women recently jumped to a best-ever No. 4 ranking in the world and will be vying for one of two available Olympic berths up for grabs in their OQT as Japan is earning an automatic qualification as the Olympic host.

Unlike the men’s tournaments, the women’s are round-robin, group-stage only, so if Canada’s going to reach the Olympics there won’t be much room of error.

Canada recently played in a pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament and looked excellent, finishing with a 3-0 record and an average margin of victory of 37 points.

The women’s team has reached the Olympic Games in each of its last two tries and have sights set on a third straight berth. Canada’s men haven’t played in an Olympic Games since 2000 in Sydney.

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