State of the Union. Team Canada Basketball. (FIBA Americas Aug.31-Sep.15)

[Wo1verine]

JT is awful and should be fired!

This is complete BS Canada should have won! No excuses and someone should pay the price for the failure.

[Inevitable]

Lol. They didn't even have Sawgquez. Raptors, Team Canada, same ****.

If Vasquez played he would have dropped 40 on Cojo

[Calinks]

Watching Argentina celebrate as they secure their spot for the Olympics is hard. Venezuela and Argentina final is crazy. Man this has upset me, can't imagine what I'd be feeling if I was a Canadian and passionate about basketball. Everything was in place for them to take it all this month.

[TheRealDeal]

Everything was in place for them to take it all this month.

A spot in Rio seemed inevitable all week. They were crushing teams. What a disastrous choke job.

[Patman]

ok honest now. a year or two ago what was your prediction with this team including Wiggins.

That we would be dominant in this field. We nearly were, until tonight's mental collapse.

[Patman]

This is exactly why Lebron wanted NOTHING to do with Wiggins and Bennett and got rid of them ASAP...

The best thing for that soft passive overrated pansy known as Wiggins is KG and Smitch kicking his ass all year.
To bad you cant teach IQ because Wiggins has the brain of a gerbil.

Wiggins looked far from a future star today. And it's not like he just had a bad shooting night. He just played poorly overall. He looked like Terrence Ross out there today. Just a lack of focus and intensity in a game of such magnitude.

[Samurai_Raps]

so so disappointed..don't know what to say. But I guess its expected as a fan of Team Canada Basketball

[Scott Hall]

This is exactly why Lebron wanted NOTHING to do with Wiggins and Bennett and got rid of them ASAP...

The best thing for that soft passive overrated pansy known as Wiggins is KG and Smitch kicking his ass all year.
To bad you cant teach IQ because Wiggins has the brain of a gerbil.

Wiggins looked far from a future star today. And it's not like he just had a bad shooting night. He just played poorly overall. He looked like Terrence Ross out there today. Just a lack of focus and intensity in a game of such magnitude.

Yup 100% agree which was why I was never on the tank for Wiggins bandwagon. Mitchell and KG could be a blessing
in disguise and will be on his ass and holding him accountable instead of coddling him and telling him how overrated
he is.

[Patman]

Everything was in place for them to take it all this month.

A spot in Rio seemed inevitable all week. They were crushing teams. What a disastrous choke job.

This. We caught so many breaks.

- Brazil sent a B team b/c they've already qualified
- Argentina chokes against Mexico to give us first place
- We play Venezuela w/o Greivis Vasquez

This tourney was handed to us on a platter

[Undefeated]

Apparently Stauskas had food poisoning which was why he wasn't able to play much

[Danchan]

pretty sure this is because of raptors fan. we just can't have good things. let's embrace it.

[frumble]

This game never should have come down to one possession.

That being said, that last possession was typical Doornekamp. Yeah, he is gritty, and gets under the skin of opponents. But if you play like that you are going to get called for stuff like that.

I can't understand why Triano abandoned the guys who played so well all tournament. Stauskas and Bennett were our two best players. And he sits them? Yeah, Stauskas missed those two open 3s, but so what? He was better than Heslip (offensively and defensively) all tournament. [edit - didn't know about the food poisoning. Maybe we should have had a fifth guard]

And Bennett was our best big all tournament.

All tournament the starters were much better than the reserves. It is fine to split the time roughly evenly in round robin blowouts, but for the semi you have to go with the better players, even if they miss a couple shots.

Notice that Scola and Nocioni each played 40 minutes for Argentina tonight? Campazzo probably would have too, had it not been for foul trouble. But we actually use our starters less when the Olympic berth is on the line???

FWIW, I don't Olynyk committed all those turnovers because he was tired; he just tried to do too much. Yes, its nice to have a 7-footer who can handle the ball on occasion, but there is no way he should have been putting it in the floor that much.


Anyway, this is what we were afraid of - no matter how good we were on paper, or even how good we played in the round robin, we knew it would come down to a sudden death semi, and at best we would be about 60% to go through.


This might be it. People talking about the golden age of Canadian basketball, and 2020 being our best shot, are ignoring the change in qualification process. 2014 Worlds and 2016 Olympics were our two best shots and we somehow failed to qualify for either (pending last chance tournament).

Re the last chance tournament, I thought it was going to be three separate tournaments, each with 6 teams and 1 spot, rather than a big tournament with 18 teams and 3 spots. Can anyone confirm? Hosting rights are up for auction (uh, I mean a fair and transparent bidding process), so maybe Basketball Canada will pony up and we will have a chance of hosting.

In any case, I don't like our chances against the European teams - they dominate these tournaments.

And I don't know how many of our guys will be available or will choose to play next summer.

Re how long Triano remains coach, Nash never played a game for Canada after Triano was fired the first time, and I can't see Triano going unless Nash goes, which is not going to happen any time soon. This regime has been in place for 4 years and has worse qualifying results than Leo, Triano 1, Konchalski, Shields or Donahue.

[Pooh_Jeter]

I've been a hardcore sports fan for the majority of my life and there have certainly been plenty of moments where I've been bummed out, but this might be the angriest I've ever been about a sporting event. I like to think I'm pretty even keel and while I can get emotional over sports, anger is generally not an emotion I experience. That definitely wasn't the case today, I actually had to step outside and compose myself after the game.

First off, that was a choke job from top to bottom, there is no use singling out anyone, everyone deserves blame. FIBA officiating is far from perfect and the call on that last play was questionable at best, but blaming the refs is just an excuse for such a soft effort from this team. Even the inexperience card I feel like is weak, sure this team is young and it wouldn't have been shocking if you told me there would be some jitters in the semi-finals, but the talent disparity was gigantic and it isn't as though Venezuela is some well oiled machine that is routinely knocking the socks off better competition. There are players on Canada who have played in big basketball games before and they have had what, 8 games to get used to this format. One of the most infuriating aspects is that for as bad as Canada played, it wasn't as though Venezuela was much better, but they kept clawing away. With 3 minutes left, Canada had a 7 point lead and they still couldn't hold on.

In most sports they say the team's personality is a direct result of their coach. Well, if you believe that then having Jay Triano as your coach certainly didn't bode well for Canada. I'm not the only one who noticed how terrible he sounded when he was drawing up the play where Wiggins found Olynyk. I'd have to re-watch the clip, but if I'm not mistaken the play call was actually for Heslip which is LOL. Offensively Canada certainly scored their fair share of points throughout the tournament, but it was mostly due to leveraging superior athleticism/talent on the break. The half court offense was still pretty meandering. I didn't think Triano did a great job of leveraging how much shooting/versatility the bigs on this team possessed. You could have easily played 5 out on offense like the Hawks did at times. Wiggins certainly has room to refine his offensive game, but I think they did a pretty poor job clearing out for him throughout the tournament. Too many times a screen would be called or a big would post up clogging driving lanes. Putting him one on one with the wings in this tournament is only going to lead to good things for Canada. It was a disservice to Wiggins current offensive strengths. In the biggest offensive possessions of the tournament, Triano decided that now was the time to integrate Nicholson into the offense. 3 guys essentially stood around while the team desperately tried to feed him in the post. Nicholson was being effective, but you're playing into the hands of the opponent when the offense becomes that stagnant and predictable.

Defensively this team was largely a disaster all tournament. I get that the personnel wasn't ideal, but Triano did an awful job leveraging the length and athleticism this team possessed. Let's just point out what happened in this game...

Powell who was clearly the best rim protector on the team never really got off the bench in this game and since his injury has been essentially glued to the bench.

Scrubb and Heslip were used as offensive and defensive substitutions in place of a player (Stauskas) who is better offensively and defensively than both of the players who were being used to replace him. If Heslip or Scrubb were shooting lights out, fine, give them extra minutes, but it wasn't as though either was playing great. The starters on team Canada absolutely throttled everyone when they were on the floor, yet in the semi-finals Triano decides it's time to shorten the leash on them. Awful, awful stuff. I believe Undefeated pointed out that Triano was routinely tinkering with lineups and that is true, but that was mostly with the bench unit, not the starters.

Aaron freaking Doornekamp was used as a defensive replacement for Andrew Wiggins. Yes, Wiggins wasn't playing all that well, but there is absolutely no situation I can fathom where I would make that sub. Someone literally could have informed Wiggins in the huddle that both his parents had died and I still would put Wiggins out there instead of Doornekamp. That sub makes Casey putting Rasual Butler in to inbound the ball look like pure genius. I would bet a lot of money the foul on the last play doesn't even have a chance to happen if Triano actually put out his best defensive lineup (Powell, Bennett, Ejim, Wiggins, CoJo). You could have thrown Stauskas in there for Bennett and gone smaller if you wanted to.

I've gone from being over the moon excited about this team to being embarrassed that I've invested so much time into following all aspects of Canadian basketball. The chances of Triano being fired are slim to none, but for the future of this team they need to get someone better. Nationality should not be a factor and if it is, shame on Canada Basketball. Look at the pure joy and adulation an Argentine showed coaching Venezuela. You're trying to tell me there is something wrong with that picture?

I know, super long post and I probably missed a few things, but this was such a crushing defeat. I'm sure with some time I'll be back on the bandwagon, but right now it's tough to imagine rooting so passionately for this team at another major tournament if things remain status quo.

[Scott Hall]

This game never should have come down to one possession.

That being said, that last possession was typical Doornekamp. Yeah, he is gritty, and gets under the skin of opponents. But if you play like that you are going to get called for stuff like that.

I can't understand why Triano abandoned the guys who played so well all tournament. Stauskas and Bennett were our two best players. And he sits them? Yeah, Stauskas missed those two open 3s, but so what? He was better than Heslip (offensively and defensively) all tournament. [edit - didn't know about the food poisoning. Maybe we should have had a fifth guard]

And Bennett was our best big all tournament.

All tournament the starters were much better than the reserves. It is fine to split the time roughly evenly in round robin blowouts, but for the semi you have to go with the better players, even if they miss a couple shots.

Notice that Scola and Nocioni each played 40 minutes for Argentina tonight? Campazzo probably would have too, had it not been for foul trouble. But we actually use our starters less when the Olympic berth is on the line???

FWIW, I don't Olynyk committed all those turnovers because he was tired; he just tried to do too much. Yes, its nice to have a 7-footer who can handle the ball on occasion, but there is no way he should have been putting it in the floor that much.


Anyway, this is what we were afraid of - no matter how good we were on paper, or even how good we played in the round robin, we knew it would come down to a sudden death semi, and at best we would be about 60% to go through.


This might be it. People talking about the golden age of Canadian basketball, and 2020 being our best shot, are ignoring the change in qualification process. 2014 Worlds and 2016 Olympics were our two best shots and we somehow failed to qualify for either (pending last chance tournament).

Re the last chance tournament, I thought it was going to be three separate tournaments, each with 6 teams and 1 spot, rather than a big tournament with 18 teams and 3 spots. Can anyone confirm? Hosting rights are up for auction (uh, I mean a fair and transparent bidding process), so maybe Basketball Canada will pony up and we will have a chance of hosting.

In any case, I don't like our chances against the European teams - they dominate these tournaments.

And I don't know how many of our guys will be available or will choose to play next summer.

Re how long Triano remains coach, Nash never played a game for Canada after Triano was fired the first time, and I can't see Triano going unless Nash goes, which is not going to happen any time soon. This regime has been in place for 4 years and has worse qualifying results than Leo, Triano 1, Konchalski, Shields or Donahue.

Also why didnt Nicholson play the entire first half? Outside of Kelly O he was the only one that remotely showed up.

And I've been saying Nash is a fraud for years. He left the program for dead as he entered his prime while guys
like Dirk, Gasol and Scola to name a few are in their late 30s dying for their countries still.

Nash has his head so far up Trianos ass its like BC with Maurizo Gherandini...

Triano has to go at all costs

[Pooh_Jeter]

This game never should have come down to one possession...

I agree with your assessment of Olynyk, although giving your 7 foot centre such heavy minutes without rest was probably a bad idea. Olynyk's handle is crafty and comes in handy when he can use it in unison with a pump fake from outside, but the taking it court to court like he is Charles Barkley in his prime was an accident waiting to happen.

As for the play-in tournament, my understanding so far is that it will be 3 separate tournaments with each winner getting a spot in the Olympics.

[frumble]

I've gone from being over the moon excited about this team to being embarrassed that I've invested so much time into following all aspects of Canadian basketball. The chances of Triano being fired are slim to none, but for the future of this team they need to get someone better. Nationality should not be a factor and if it is, shame on Canada Basketball. Look at the pure joy and adulation an Argentine showed coaching Venezuela. You're trying to tell me there is something wrong with that picture?

I know, super long post and I probably missed a few things, but this was such a crushing defeat. I'm sure with some time I'll be back on the bandwagon, but right now it's tough to imagine rooting so passionately for this team at another major tournament if things remain status quo.

Couldn't agree more.

[Undefeated]

Triano definitely under utilized Wiggins' post game. They had some nice actions in their previous games where Stauskas would set a cross screen for Wiggins for a post catch on the block then immediately receive a stagger screen on the backside to occupy help and defenses won't help or cheat when it's Stauskas setting the screen and coming off the stagger. Another set was one that Flip frequently ran for Wiggins at the pinch post and they'd clear the entire strongside for him to work with a backside double. Both sets would be incredibly hard to stop yet for some reason Triano didn't run it enough this game.

[mojo13]

I've been a hardcore sports fan for the majority of my life and there have certainly been plenty of moments where I've been bummed out, but this might be the angriest I've ever been about a sporting event. I like to think I'm pretty even keel and while I can get emotional over sports, anger is generally not an emotion I experience. That definitely wasn't the case today, I actually had to step outside and compose myself after the game.

First off, that was a choke job from top to bottom, there is no use singling out anyone, everyone deserves blame. FIBA officiating is far from perfect and the call on that last play was questionable at best, but blaming the refs is just an excuse for such a soft effort from this team. Even the inexperience card I feel like is weak, sure this team is young and it wouldn't have been shocking if you told me there would be some jitters in the semi-finals, but the talent disparity was gigantic and it isn't as though Venezuela is some well oiled machine that is routinely knocking the socks off better competition. There are players on Canada who have played in big basketball games before and they have had what, 8 games to get used to this format. One of the most infuriating aspects is that for as bad as Canada played, it wasn't as though Venezuela was much better, but they kept clawing away. With 3 minutes left, Canada had a 7 point lead and they still couldn't hold on.

In most sports they say the team's personality is a direct result of their coach. Well, if you believe that then having Jay Triano as your coach certainly didn't bode well for Canada. I'm not the only one who noticed how terrible he sounded when he was drawing up the play where Wiggins found Olynyk. I'd have to re-watch the clip, but if I'm not mistaken the play call was actually for Heslip which is LOL. Offensively Canada certainly scored their fair share of points throughout the tournament, but it was mostly due to leveraging superior athleticism/talent on the break. The half court offense was still pretty meandering. I didn't think Triano did a great job of leveraging how much shooting/versatility the bigs on this team possessed. You could have easily played 5 out on offense like the Hawks did at times. Wiggins certainly has room to refine his offensive game, but I think they did a pretty poor job clearing out for him throughout the tournament. Too many times a screen would be called or a big would post up clogging driving lanes. Putting him one on one with the wings in this tournament is only going to lead to good things for Canada. It was a disservice to Wiggins current offensive strengths. In the biggest offensive possessions of the tournament, Triano decided that now was the time to integrate Nicholson into the offense. 3 guys essentially stood around while the team desperately tried to feed him in the post. Nicholson was being effective, but you're playing into the hands of the opponent when the offense becomes that stagnant and predictable.

Defensively this team was largely a disaster all tournament. I get that the personnel wasn't ideal, but Triano did an awful job leveraging the length and athleticism this team possessed. Let's just point out what happened in this game...

Powell who was clearly the best rim protector on the team never really got off the bench in this game and since his injury has been essentially glued to the bench.

Scrubb and Heslip were used as offensive and defensive substitutions in place of a player (Stauskas) who is better offensively and defensively than both of the players who were being used to replace him. If Heslip or Scrubb were shooting lights out, fine, give them extra minutes, but it wasn't as though either was playing great. The starters on team Canada absolutely throttled everyone when they were on the floor, yet in the semi-finals Triano decides it's time to shorten the leash on them. Awful, awful stuff. I believe Undefeated pointed out that Triano was routinely tinkering with lineups and that is true, but that was mostly with the bench unit, not the starters.

Aaron freaking Doornekamp was used as a defensive replacement for Andrew Wiggins. Yes, Wiggins wasn't playing all that well, but there is absolutely no situation I can fathom where I would make that sub. Someone literally could have informed Wiggins in the huddle that both his parents had died and I still would put Wiggins out there instead of Doornekamp. That sub makes Casey putting Rasual Butler in to inbound the ball look like pure genius. I would bet a lot of money the foul on the last play doesn't even have a chance to happen if Triano actually put out his best defensive lineup (Powell, Bennett, Ejim, Wiggins, CoJo). You could have thrown Stauskas in there for Bennett and gone smaller if you wanted to.

I've gone from being over the moon excited about this team to being embarrassed that I've invested so much time into following all aspects of Canadian basketball. The chances of Triano being fired are slim to none, but for the future of this team they need to get someone better. Nationality should not be a factor and if it is, shame on Canada Basketball. Look at the pure joy and adulation an Argentine showed coaching Venezuela. You're trying to tell me there is something wrong with that picture?

I know, super long post and I probably missed a few things, but this was such a crushing defeat. I'm sure with some time I'll be back on the bandwagon, but right now it's tough to imagine rooting so passionately for this team at another major tournament if things remain status quo.

This captures my thoughts almost exactly. Well said.

I am so emotionally drained after this I cant be bothered to get my full thoughts out. I was just so emotionally invested in this team, I don't think I have felt such a let down in my sporting fandom. This was worst melt down I have ever witnessed.

I live nearby Nash and I swear to all of you, if see him out in public I will walk right up to him and tell him that for the love of all Canadian basketball fans he must get rid of Triano.

[frumble]

I just took a closer look at the Mex-Arg boxscore. Not only did Nocioni and Scola play 40 minutes for Arg, but Ayon played 40 for Mexico and Hernandez 38 (and Gutierrez probably would have played a similar amount were it not for foul trouble).

Mexico essentially only used 6 guys (3 other guys played 2 to 4 minutes each).

Yes, they lost, but they lost with their best guys.

[Pooh_Jeter]

I don't think Triano will be replaced and obviously I have no clue what interest people would have in the job if it were open, but the one obvious name that pops into my head is Mike D'Antoni. He has a connection with Steve Nash and he does have some experience with the international game given his time with Team USA. He played professionally in Italy as well.

It seems like there is no interest from the NBA for his return and while certainly he has his faults (particularly defensively) you can't deny that he was an innovator offensively. You would have to think given the shooting and athleticism this team possesses he would have a field day coaching up Team Canada offensively.