MEXICO CITY — When the Canadian national men’s basketball team last played games of true significance, they failed.
Two years ago in Venezuela a team with solid international experience and more NBA pedigree than any other country competing in the FIBA Tournament of the Americas was 4-1 through their first five games, ploughing through the competition.
It seemed almost certain they would secure themselves one of the four available spots in the 2014 World Championships. It seemed like the Canadian basketball renaissance was underway.
Instead a team led by Cory Joseph, Tristan Thompson and Andrew Nicholson didn’t win another game, each loss coming in its own excruciating way and the celebration of Canada finally reclaiming its place in the basketball world was put on hold. Again.
Now is the time to make amends.
Canada’s Golden Generation, headlined by Andrew Wiggins, gets their chance to take their first big step when competition gets underway at the 2015 FIBA Tournament of the Americas. Canada begins play on Tuesday against Argentina. At stake is their first crack at an Olympic berth in Rio next summer, where they would almost certainly be a sexy pick for a spot on the podium, a step no Canadian basketball team has taken since they won silver playing outdoors and in the rain in Munich in 1936.
But they have to get there. And as was proven in Caracas, fortunes in international play can turn on a dime.
In 2013 Canada’s shortcoming was sold as a mere hiccup on the country’s long road back from near irrelevance.
“It’s a seven- or eight-year road, and that’s how we think about it,” then Canada Basketball president and chief executive officer Wayne Parrish said at the time. “It starts in 2012 or 2013, but we’re looking ahead to 2020. [Not qualifying] is a misstep, for sure, but I don’t think it will have the same impact it would in a different scenario.”
Even now, the statement rings true: As exciting as Canada’s prospects are now and even looking forward to the opportunity to fight for a medal in 2016 in Rio, it’s hard not to look at the 2020 Games in Tokyo as Canada’s true sweet spot, when Wiggins will be 24, Anthony Bennett 25 and Thompson, Joseph, Nicholson and Kelly Olynyk in their primes and the likes of a young Jamal Murray just entering his. A team like that, with more experience playing together, is easy to project as one that could make the U.S. Goliath at least a little nervous in a one-game, 40-minute shootout to determine international basketball supremacy.
But here’s the catch: For Canada’s golden generation to realize its potential it needs experience. It needs the opportunity to play the world’s best in hostile conditions with everything on the line. They need to play in Olympic tournaments and World Championships. They need to earn battle scars together.
The opportunity was there two years ago in Venezuela and Canada fell short and in the summer of 2014 they played an exhibition schedule across Europe rather than buckling in for the World Championships.
In theory, falling short this time around wouldn’t be the end of their Olympic dreams either, as there is a last-chance qualifying route available next summer, but it is a much more slippery slope.
Far simpler to get the job done here. There are 10 teams in the competition, divided into two groups that compete in a four-game round robin. The top-four teams in the group then face off against the top four teams in the other group. If Canada doesn’t get this far it would be a disaster, one that won’t happen.
The next goal is to finish in the top four after the second round and advance to the semifinals. A spot in the finals means a trip to Rio and since Brazil has already qualified for Rio as Olympic hosts, if Brazil makes it to the finals then the winner of the third-place game would also make it.
In 2013 there was margin for error. Canada was a good team, possibly the best in the tournament. Certainly through the first five games they seemed like a cold lock to be on the four teams that were going to make it to the World Championships.
But they fell short then, delaying the start on Canada’s international clock. Back then there was still time to absorb a failure and bounce back. This is the summer for them to bounce back. How the team has conducted itself since suggests they already have. Their 4-1 record at the Pan Am Games and the silver medal they won there bode well, even if the competition was a notch below what they will face over the next two weeks.
Their 4-0 record at the Tuto Marchand Cup against teams they will be battling with beginning on Tuesday holds even more promise.
This is the undoubtedly the most talented collection of Canadian basketball players ever assembled. The future is incredibly bright.
But beginning now and for the next two weeks, there is no more margin for error.