Alright Team Canada – the games that really count are about to start and as great as your 4-0 run through the Tuto Marchand tournament in Puerto Rico was (and it was great) the start of the 2015 FIBA Americas Championships is where you really need to deliver.
To say there wasn’t anything on the line during last month’s series of friendlies that saw Team Canada beat a field of teams they’ll share the court with this week in Mexico City would be false. While the victors didn’t earn a berth in the 2016 Olympics as they will here, getting the chance to play four games with the final roster against the same competition you’re about to face is invaluable and surely gave Team Canada some confidence heading into this week’s festivities.
It’s one thing to think you can beat teams like Argentina and Puerto Rico, but actually going out and doing it last week should send the Canadian squad into this competition not hoping they can hang close with those nations that sit ahead of them in the FIBA rankings, but knowing they can beat those teams and win this tournament.
It’s kind of like I’ve said about the Blue Jays since the deadline deals that have propelled them into first place: you can quantify what confidence does for a team, but you can see it in the way they play and just as the Blue Jays have hit the diamond with a different swagger since Troy Tulowitzki and David Price came to town, Andrew Wiggins & Co. should take the court looking to make the opposition prove they can stop them.
Because this is where Team Canada’s ascension has to begin.
The sport has been building in this country for a number of years and observers have known that the time was going to come when all the young talent populating the NCAA ranks and becoming lottery picks in the NBA was going to find its way to the Senior Men’s National Team and when they did, Team Canada would finally be a force to be reckoned with on the international stage.
That time has arrived.
This is the competition where Wiggins, Cory Joseph, Anthony Bennett and Kelly Olynyk all need to take the next step forward. This is where the foundation for making a realistic run at the podium not next year in Rio, but in 2020 in Tokyo has to be laid. That will be the competition where the core four and Kentucky-bound guard (and future Top 5 picks) Jamal Murray will be reaching their athletic prime and have a wealth of experience playing together.
They’ll probably have Tristan Thompson running with them as well, which certainly wouldn’t hurt.
On depth and overall level of talent, there is no team in this competition that can match up with Canada. There are teams that have been playing together longer and have the veteran guile to pull out victories and find a way to out-fox the young squad, but as long as Team Canada plays up to their abilities, they should leave Mexico City with one of the two Olympic berths that are available.
