The road to Rio made a stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico last night for the opener of the Marchand Cup, and Andrew Wiggins led Canada to an 85-80 victory over Luis Scola and Argentina. When you look around the globe and try to discern who the next basketball powerhouse will be, the best place to look is just north of the U.S. border. Canada will one day be able to field a tam of NBA players all in their primes
Steve Nash has retired as a player, and the Internet has been flooded in recent days about the point guard’s glorious past. I am here today to tell you a 15-year-old story that no one else has told, and give you an idea of where Nash hopes to be in five years when he turns 46. Ideally, it’ll be on the gold medal podium at the Tokyo Olympics as the executive director of Team Canada. [Read more…]
BROOKLYN — Andrew Wiggins will “most likely” play for Team Canada in this summer’s FIBA-Americas Olympic qualifying tournament, a huge piece of positive news for a Canadian federation that has been hoping and praying that the NBA’s most exciting rookie will play for his national team. Wiggins gave me the “most likely” quote as he warmed up for the Rising Stars challenge Friday night at the Barclay’s Center. When I pressed him and asked it he was 100 percent in, he hedged
The glorious history of NBA All-Star Weekend is littered with bad ideas. Remember 2-Ball? The Wheel of Fortune at the Slam Dunk Contest? The game uniforms that had different colors on the front and back, so you couldn’t tell which players were on which team? This week, however, the NBA announced a change to one of the All-Star Weekend events that is a really good idea. The Rising Stars will pit American players against international players. The Rising Stars has undergone several changes
It’s prediction time, and as I have always liked to say: Predictions are like armpits: Everyone has them, and all of them stink. Take it from a guy who picked Spurs in 7 last season. Yes, that one missed – but find me a guy who predicted that Gregg Popovich would have an extreme bout of cranial flatulence with the championship within his grasp at the end of Game 6, and then I’ll drop the armpit line. I still can’t get
Andrew Wiggins will not be taking his talents to Spain next summer. Unless … Well, first things first. Canada, which should have a team that can compete for a medal (maybe even gold?) by the time the Tokyo Olympics roll around in 2020 (Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, Kelly Olynyk, Andrew Nicholson, Cory Joseph; Tristan Thompson, all in their primes) failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup by losing 73-67 to Luis Scola (28 points) and Argentina on Sunday at the FIBA-Americas Tournament
Steve Nash took on a daunting task last year when he agreed to become general manager of Canada’s Senior Men’s basketball team, a club that hasn’t had Olympic podium success since the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Germany. Steve Nash at a press conference for Canada Basketball in 2012. Besides running Canada’s basketball operations, Nash also focuses the majority of his time at improving his game by training in facilities all over North America during the offseason.
From www.fiba.com Steve Nash does not play international basketball anymore, which is the biggest reason why Team Canada has fallen off the map competitively since in the 12 years since the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when Nash, Todd MacCulloch and Rowen Barrett, coached by Jay Triano, won their group in pool play before losing in the first game of the knockout round to France. There is a story I have heard in the years since that gives some good