A corner was turned on the heels of disappointment for Canada Basketball. The Canadian senior men's attempt to qualify for the Tokyo Games ended in July 2021, when it lost to Czechia in the semifinals of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying tournament in Victoria.
Canada Basketball's front office altered its approach after failing to qualify for its first Olympics since 2000, with 14 players signing three-year commitments in May 2022. "Our failure to qualify for the previous Olympics, we just completely changed our approach," said general manager Rowan Barrett. "It's a privilege to play on your national team and to represent your country, and we determined that we wanted a three-year commitment at that point. "Players that could not [commit], for whatever the reason, and sometimes they're good reasons, we said, 'OK, you know, we'll move on from them and we'll maybe look at them again in the next quad if they're able to commit.' "But we're going to go with the guys that are able to commit so that we could build continuity as a team and not try to show up like an all-star team, but as an actual team that's growing each year and able to build systematically on top of each year." WATCH | Canada Basketball president believes teams can shock the world in Paris: That group of players included Oklahoma City Thunder superstar guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray, New York Knicks guard-forward RJ Barrett and Houston Rockets forward Dillon Brooks.
While Murray pulled out following training camp to recover — camp was just six weeks after Denver won the NBA title — the other three furthered their names on the international stage, especially Gilgeous-Alexander who was a World Cup tournament all-star.