Gilgeous-Alexander committed to lead Canada Basketball back to Olympics

TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – Nick Nurse was getting ready to address a room filled with many of Canada’s best basketball players.

The meeting, which was planned around NBA Summer League and took place in Las Vegas at this time a year ago, has widely been credited as the first and most crucial step towards securing the commitments that Nurse and the senior men’s program felt were necessary to finally get over the hump.

They were only a couple of weeks removed from a tough semi-finals loss to the Czech Republic on home soil, which ensured that their Olympic drought – now spanning more than two decades – would last another three years. It wasn’t for a lack of talent – that Canadian team had more NBA players than the other five clubs in that tournament combined.

The takeaway from yet another disappointing setback was that they needed more continuity to keep up with some of these other countries, many of which feature the same core of players at every major FIBA event. It wasn’t enough for their guys, even their best guys, to merely show up. They had to be fully on board.

So, the plan – spearheaded by Nurse and Rowan Barrett, the head coach and general manager of the senior men’s team – was to ask the country’s top players for a three-year commitment. That’s not an insignificant request when you consider all the things that can stand in the way of a professional athlete dedicating weeks of their off-season, from injuries to contractual issues, personal obligations, and more. Even those who can’t play in any given window, for whatever reason, would be required to attend training camp and take part in meetings.

But before Nurse could even give his sales pitch, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took the floor.

“I was