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Canadian ballers opt out of Olympic qualifier


The NBA season is over. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are world champs. Those would be the same Cavaliers the Toronto Raptors took to a game six before bowing out of the Eastern Conference finals. A glorious run it was. 

Full disclosure: I’m a recent convert to the Canadian-born, American-grown game of basketball. Thank you again, Mr. Naismith. 

As an ex-Montrealer living in Toronto, I found myself plugging in my HDMI cable to stream the hometown Raptors during their play-off run. Little by little I’ve developed a connection to a sport I casually follow through a team that plays in my new city. 

Though they inspire a surge of nationalism in many of my fellow Torontonians, the Raptors don’t trigger my Canadian pride. My heart swells whenever #cancon Cory Joseph from Pickering, Ontario, does well, but I know the team belongs to Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan and that Americans, even if they’re playing in the 6ix, dominate the sport. 

Unlike the nation’s attachment to the Blue Jays and baseball, and to hockey in general, Canada’s connection to professional basketball is just now growing to the point where the people are now taking patriotic ownership of Toronto’s team.

The Olympics, however, is supposed to be different. Which brings me to the Canadian men’s national basketball team, who’ll be taking part in the Olympic qualifying tournament in Manila next month. If they win, they go to Rio. 

But turns out our Canucks in the association – the NBA, that is – have betrayed us. Wunderkind Andrew Wiggins, along with Nik Stauskas, Tristan Thompson (of those same world champion Cavs) and Kelly Olynyk (who’s recovering from shoulder surgery), are opting out of the qualifier, reportedly to focus on their NBA careers. In other words, some summer rest and relaxation.

As someone who gets pathetically excited when Canadian content sneaks into American pop culture (I still hear a patriotic drumbeat when I see that Habs jersey hanging in Jerry McGuire’s office – look a little closer!), I’d hoped like all the other dreamers that the next NBA superstar would be Canadian.

Wiggins still isn’t on LeBron’s level, but he’s not off to a shabby start either, as the league’s number one pick and winner of rookie of the year in 2014. He’s making his mark in the league. He’s also made a mark on Canadian consumption of basketball, acting as ambassador for such Canadian brands as BMO and BioSteel. 

He earns money as a Canadian brand ambassador, but he hasn’t earned the right to represent me as a Canadian basketball fan. He can show his face on television and say the words “Canada” and “basketball” in the same sentence, but until the Maple Leaf rests on his chest, he doesn’t represent me. 

I don’t accuse Wiggins et al. of choosing money over country (there’s zero proof of that), but it would be nice to see them put his money where his mouth is when it comes to repping Canada.

If they somehow pull it off in Manila, don’t expect Canada Basketball to do all that well in Rio. That’s too bad, because they could’ve been contenders.     

David Greenberg is pursuing his masters in journalism at Ryerson University.

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

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