Malone, Mahlalela and other candidates for Canada Basketball's open coaching positions

About eight months ago, Canada went to the Paris Olympics with the idea of bringing home three basketball medals.

It ended up with none.

That sort of failure, in a professional sports setting, may lead to widespread changes on the roster. Of course, that's mostly impossible in international tournaments — you can tinker, and you can recruit dual citizens (Hakeem Olajuwon's two sons appear to be on the Canada track), but your core is your core.

Instead, in the aftermath of the Olympics, Canada Basketball found itself needing new head coaches on both the men's and women's senior teams, as well as a general manager for the latter.

Jordi Fernandez left the men's team in February, citing his job with the Brooklyn Nets, while Victor LaPena and Canada Basketball mutually parted ways in October.

The third team in Paris — the women's 3x3 squad — has already begun experimenting with new players, but by nature faces a different road with different infrastructure to the podium at Los Angeles 2028.

On the five-on-five front, earlier in April, Canada removed the interim label from Steve Baur, tapping the longtime assistant coach as the team's new GM.

Now, CEO Mike Bartlett, Baur and men's GM Rowan Barrett can focus on finding new bench bosses.

Bartlett told CBC Sports in March that he hopes to have those positions filled by the summer, when each team will participate in the FIBA AmeriCup — the women in Chile in July, followed by the men in Nicaragua in August.

With choices coming soon, here are some candidates to fill both positions:

Here's a name that only started to become a possibility earlier in April, when he was shockingly fired as head coach of the Denver Nuggets despite leading the team to an NBA championship less than two