My Two Cents: What to Take Away From the SMNT Camp Roster

Canada Basketball has released the Senior Men's National Team roster this past Friday and the dust has finally settled.  People have had the time to react, question and complain about the roster and who is and isn't on it.  Can Ball Ray takes a look at what he thinks is going to be the biggest slept on point about this roster and why it's the way for CB to get Canada's Senior Men back into the upper echelon's of global basketball ...

Unless you were under a rock the last few days (or onvacation on a very nice, un attached tropical island), you may be aware thatCanada Basketball had announced the players they had invited to the SeniorMen’s National Team camp which begins this Friday.   I was away for the weekend and was unable to be at the press conference that Canada Basketball so I may have missed some things that were probably not in the many stories and videos that surfaced hours later.  The list of invitees are all guys that can help our Men’s National Program get to stages that our Women’s was at last summer beginning with the FIBA World Championships next year. 

As is customary of me when I get a list of players for any team, as I’m sure it is for many of you sports fans, I scan the names of players immediately.  That is then followed by a slower scan of the names to ingest all their bio info, or as much as I can anyway.  When it comes to the names on National Team lists, I generally have an idea of the names of the players and what they were doing last year. 

But something struck me about this list of players for this particular edition of the SMNT:  with the exception of three players they were all professionals.  To be exact 16 of the 19 invited athletes were no longer in school of any kind and have listed occupations as basketball players. 

(Now before all you sticklers bring up the fact that both Myck Kabongo and Junior Cadougan both have yet to sign to a team as first year player’s bear in mind that they are still pros at this point.)

Think about that for a second – 16 of the 19 invited players are professionals.  That’s 84% of them.  That’s a large percentage of the total number.  This struck me as a huge deal!  And not just any pro guys but name pros some of who are in the NBA. In all the questions of why wasn’t Wiggins or Lyles or Pangos or whoever not invited to the camp this important fact of the matter will be overlooked.  And it really shouldn’t be because this is an incredibly important milestone for the National Program.

If you’ve been following the National Program from the beginning to the end of the Leo Rautins era, you may have noticed and likely been accustomed to seeing half the roster being filled out by some of our top college players, usually from south of the border.  Now if you were following the program before this time, you would know that this wasn’t always the case. 

Before Leo was hired as skipper for the SMNT, the rosters were primarily filled with players who were playing in Europe and in some cases starring like Rowan Barrett or Michael Meeks.  These players had a few pro years under their belts and were already well acquainted with the international game.  Now there were some exceptions of course but the point is that the majority of the squads were a collection of professional players who had built resumes as pros.  The most important thing is that they already had proven they could play at the pro level.

I think this is the route that the National Program must take to get Canada back to a place of relevance in the global basketball scene and I suspect that this is what the new heads of Canada Basketball are trying to do. 

With all do respect to the guys like Wiggins, Lyles, Pangos, Stauskas, Warren Ward, Tyson Hinz and anyone else that is still not getting paid to play the game yet, there is a world of difference between playing and dominating in college or high school age level and playing with grown men that are playing at the professional level.  Having professionals as the majority of the team representing Canada at the senior level is how it will have to be.  These young bucks are going to have to wait their turn.  

And this is the most exciting part people!

The country is producing talented players that can play at the highest levels, at any level.  Whereas in the past we may have had a famine of available and committed talent base we now have a boon.  The kids that we have been banking on to mature and develop are now blossoming and have made it to the pro level.  Pretty soon we’ll have the luxury of considering a second full team of pros and maybe even having to cut NBA guys. 

Make no mistake about it my friends the lack of seeing Young Wiggins or other familiar names from the junior circuit is not the big news of this camp roster.  It is that fact that Canada Basketball can now field a team primarily made of professional players that not only have name recognition but also have talent and resumes as pros.  This is the best way for Canada to regain what is had lost on the men’s side in the last few years.

I can’t wait for the following summers when we have more pros to choose from for this team.