Team Canada Basketball Thread V2.0

[slothrop8]

This took some digging - but such is my dedication to my fellow Team Canada Basketball Thread posters. I saw that Barcelona had a retirement press conference/ceremony for Juan Carlos Navarro on Friday and the article casually mentioned that all current Barcelona players were in attendance. I watched the video of the attendees giving Navarro a standing ovation - and sure enough Pangos was in the crowd. So, from there I assumed they wouldn't bring the team together from all over the world for a press conference - they would schedule the press conference when the team was already assembled - and sure enough Barcelona played last night in the Finals of something called the Lliga Catalana - which is apparently a preseason tournament for Spanish teams from the Catalonia region. Pangos played 25 minutes and lost to Dylan Ennis' team. As this was the final of this event - assumedly this commitment is now over for Pangos and maybe he's on his way to join the Team Canada camp now? I wasn't able to unearth that tidbit - the internet has its limits - but I can at least confirm Pangos hasn't been there yet - he's been playing in Spain.

Read on Twitter

[mojo13]

This took some digging - but such is my dedication to my fellow Team Canada Basketball Thread posters. I saw that Barcelona had a retirement press conference/ceremony for Juan Carlos Navarro on Friday and the article casually mentioned that all current Barcelona players were in attendance. I watched the video of the attendees giving Navarro a standing ovation - and sure enough Pangos was in the crowd. So, from there I assumed they wouldn't bring the team together from all over the world for a press conference - they would schedule the press conference when the team was already assembled - and sure enough Barcelona played last night in the Finals of something called the Lliga Catalana - which is apparently a preseason tournament for Spanish teams from the Catalonia region. Pangos played 25 minutes and lost to Dylan Ennis' team. As this was the final of this event - assumedly this commitment is now over for Pangos and maybe he's on his way to join the Team Canada camp now? I wasn't able to unearth that tidbit - the internet has its limits - but I can at least confirm Pangos hasn't been there yet - he's been playing in Spain.

Read on Twitter

Ah...great investigative work. I did read many European teams were not releasing guys until the 10th - which was impacting a load of training camps and the exhibition games. Today is the 10th so maybe that was impacting Pangos as well.

Now get to work on finding out about Brooks!


EDIT: Peter Yannapolous just Tweeted that Brooks is there. But he did not mention Pangos.

[TrueNorth31]

Good detective work Slothrop. It's going to be a tough grind for Pangos with the jet lag and limited practice time he's going to have. Fortunately he was an observer in camp last August with the America Cup team so he's not going in totally blind. A long time observer to the national program once told me how amazed he was , in just how quickly veteran professionals who came in late compared to the college kids in the program, picked up the offence. He used Montrealer Bill Wennington as an example, he'd always come in late, but would quickly get up to speed since he'd seen it all. Lets hope Pangos is able to hit the ground running.

Poor Yannopoules and Basketball Canada, what a morning to have a press availability session with the Pacioretty trade exploding in Montreal today. Such is life for Canadian hoop fans.....

[Hair Canada]

Good detective work Slothrop. It's going to be a tough grind for Pangos with the jet lag and limited practice time he's going to have. Fortunately he was an observer in camp last August with the America Cup team so he's not going in totally blind. A long time observer to the national program once told me how amazed he was , in just how quickly veteran professionals who came in late compared to the college kids in the program, picked up the offence. He used Montrealer Bill Wennington as an example, he'd always come in late, but would quickly get up to speed since he'd seen it all. Lets hope Pangos is able to hit the ground running.

Poor Yannopoules and Basketball Canada, what a morning to have a press availability session with the Pacioretty trade exploding in Montreal today. Such is life for Canadian hoop fans.....

Yes, hope it goes smoothly. I'll be going to the game on Thursday. But last time I checked, it looked like more than half of the sits were still available. Considering how fast the tickets to the McGill-Duke game last month were sold (I can tell you there were no empty sits on that game), it doesn't look too good. Hope we don't end up with an embarrassing attendance. There are a lot of basketball fans in Montreal, so hopefully, they step up.

[TrueNorth31]

Brazil at McGill training - according to their federation website Huertas their star guard ( Lakers/Euroleague ) arrives later today ( as Mojo heard re: current euroleague guys ). Augusto Lima ( former Euroleague ) and Anderson Varejao are in camp. Unfortunately for them, one of their more solid bigs Rafael Hettsheimer , a real good 3 point shooter broke his foot in France and is done.

http://www.cbb.com.br/noticias/2018/09/com-augusto-lima-de-volta-selecao-brasileira-faz-primeiro-treino-em-montreal-no-canada

[TrueNorth31]

The article also mentions Leandro Barbosa is with the team as well.

[mojo13]

Knew something was up with Dillon Brooks.
He wasn’t in any of over a dozen photos and vids.

Read on Twitter

This is a huge blow at the position we are weakest at.


Sounds more like Brooks has a last minute case of the Murray/Wiggins. Aka the Grizz pushed him hard enough not to play and he buckled.

[mojo13]

and Pangos not joining the team until Tuesday. Getting what? 2 days of practice in. I think that rules him out of the starting line up.

Based on the pics we have seen it is looking like:
CoJo
Heslip
Ejim
Olynyk
Thompson

Those longing for Ejim to be a SF for Canada will get their wish.

I expect Pierre, Pangos and Birch to be the main pieces off the bench and I hope they keep a tight rotation.

Seeing the grey jerseys I’d expect Best, Keane and Jackson to be there as well.
Who knows maybe Justin Jackson can surprise us, but I am skeptical as I don’t think he is much of a player right now.

That’s room for one more. Diressa? Hayes?
As some of you say, maybe Joel Anthony (I don’t see it) - I’d much rather they take Landry over Anthony but I think we need another wing option like Diressa.

[aminiaturebuddha]

Really too bad about Brooks. Not sure that his scoring from the wing can be replaced. We'll need to rely even more on Olynyk and Pangos for offence.

It's hard to know what to expect from Justin Jackson, since no one has really seen him play much in about a year. Hopefully as soon as he got the medical ok he was in the gym working on his outside shot. If he could even hit open 3s and provide good wing defence, he could be useful off the bench.

[mojo13]

The main thing keeping me optimistic is that this is a fairly weak Brazilian team. Almost as short as us on decent wings.

Here is a read on Brazil from their media if anyone is interested. You’ll need to translate it.
http://blogs.lance.com.br/cafe-belgrado/eliminatorias-fiba-o-problema-tatico-que-a-ausencia-de-alas-traz-ao-brasil/

[slothrop8]

No Brooks hurts. The game against Chile is not a concern, but Brazil is a dangerous opponent. It would be a nice time to get a red-hot Heslip game where he makes 6 triples or so - that would assuage our wing scoring concerns.

[WellYouKnow]

and Pangos not joining the team until Tuesday. Getting what? 2 days of practice in. I think that rules him out of the starting line up.

Based on the pics we have seen it is looking like:
CoJo
Heslip
Ejim
Olynyk
Thompson

Those longing for Ejim to be a SF for Canada will get their wish.

I expect Pierre, Pangos and Birch to be the main pieces off the bench and I hope they keep a tight rotation.

Seeing the grey jerseys I’d expect Best, Keane and Jackson to be there as well.
Who knows maybe Justin Jackson can surprise us, but I am skeptical as I don’t think he is much of a player right now.

That’s room for one more. Diressa? Hayes?
As some of you say, maybe Joel Anthony (I don’t see it) - I’d much rather they take Landry over Anthony but I think we need another wing option like Diressa.

Im pretty sure Rana has gone with a 3 guard lineup as the starters everytime he's coached, so i wouldnt be shocked to see him do it again.

Agree that we don't have the depth for this window to take Anthony for sentimental reasons.

[frumble]

Thanks to everyone for all the updates.

Wow, losing Brooks hurts. Especially given the not ideal situation at SG.

I think we are more likely to go with three-guard sets than Ejim at the 3.

[Pooh_Jeter]

Welp, I guess we get to see 30 minutes of Heslip now.

I'm excited to see if the strides Pangos took in Europe carry over to the SMNT. That would go a long way in replacing the impact of Brooks. Olynyk is going to have to be even more aggressive finding his offense.

[WellYouKnow]

I would be shocked if Heslip starts or get 30 minutes against Brazil. They have way too many talented guards for our coaches to be dumb enough to do that

I would think with Brooks gone, a starting 3 guard lineup (if Rana wants to do that again) of something like Pangos- CoJo- Best would make the most sense


I actually like Jackson alot more than most here seem to but i doubt they put too.o much on his plate in his first call up to the national team

[Hair Canada]

A (long!) article in the French Canadian media about the team and the game. Pretty interesting read. Some of the highlights are that Rana as coach was only decided very late in the game and that we shouldn't expect a full house on Thursday (says it would have been if RJ was playing). Also goes back to the issue of commitment to the team.

https://www.rds.ca/basketball/le-malaise-de-l-equipe-canadienne-1.6366554

[mojo13]

A (long!) article in the French Canadian media about the team and the game. Pretty interesting read. Some of the highlights are that Rana as coach was only decided very late in the game and that we shouldn't expect a full house on Thursday (says it would have been if RJ was playing). Also goes back to the issue of commitment to the team.

https://www.rds.ca/basketball/le-malaise-de-l-equipe-canadienne-1.6366554

Good read but once again Canadian media fails to see all the core issues. At least mention the pressure these guys are under not to play by NBA and EuroLeague clubs. Maybe if they looked around at the other rosters in the world and see how few NBA players are playing, the media would find something to be cheery about. Or hey... look at the Brazilian roster, you know - the team we are playing and ask why they are missing all of their 4-5 NBA players? Or how about Euro clubs releasing guys two days before games start?

FIBA, the NBA, the European clubs - no one is making this easy on the players.

[lexxus]

What channel they will air this? TSN 2?

[WellYouKnow]

What channel they will air this? TSN 2?

Streaming website called DAZN is the only thing I know that has these games. You get a free trial month when you sign up so it's not that bad

[mojo13]

ESPN+ if you are in the US or can pretend to be.
Livebasketball.TV would be another online option, but you’d need to VPN into another country besides Canada or the USA.