Team Canada Basketball Thread V2.0

[mojo13]

Sam Vecenie wrote a little bit on Darling's decision to stay in the draft

https://theathletic.com/1966426/2020/08/03/2020-nba-draft-early-entry-deadline-decision-tracker-with-analysis/?source=emp_shared_article

Nate Darling, W, Delaware | Vecenie Big Board Rank: NR (for now) | Decision: Staying in 2020 NBA Draft

Darling has been a sneaky real prospect all season in the CAA, the third of which in that league who will likely end up on my final top-100 list. For those unacquainted, he’s a 6-foot-5 shooter out of Canada who started his career at UAB, and has blossomed in his time with the Blue Hens.

He averaged 21 points per game this year, while morphing into one of the most feared shooters in college basketball. He’s made over 40 percent of his 400-plus attempts over the last two years he’s played (having sat out the 2018-19 year after transferring). Over his final 12 games, he averaged over 24 points while shooting an absurd 47.6/43.0/90.5 line. With teams all over the NBA looking for the next Duncan Robinson, Darling stands out as a real option. And he’s someone who actually has a bit more ball creation skill than guys like him typically get credit for. He can play in pick-and-roll, and he finished at the rim at a high level this season.

I wasn’t sure what his intentions were, so I chose to rank older players who guys near the bottom of my rankings. But he’s deserving of being there. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see him be on a two-way contract next season. It’s not out of the question that he could be picked in the draft on such a deal with a team ahead of time. If not in America, I think he has a high-level European career ahead of him. The shooter-plus skill set is one that fits everywhere worldwide, and given that Darling has been in college for four years and turns 22 later this month, it’s a total reasonable decision for him to be ready to start his pro career.

Like Carl English?

Very similar - I bet Darling has a bit better profile and upside. Nate and Carl had very similar final seasons. Nate 21ppg, 4r, 3a on great high volume three point shooting (40% on 8.4 threes attempted a game). Carl was 20ppg, 5r, 2a, and 40% from three on 7 attempts per game. Both played in very weak conferences. Difference is Carl got the hype as he was the best player Canada produced in a while. Nate seems to be way under the radar as he is one of dozens recently. Carl could have been a 2way type player back in the day if those contacts existed.

[will]

Sam Vecenie wrote a little bit on Darling's decision to stay in the draft

https://theathletic.com/1966426/2020/08/03/2020-nba-draft-early-entry-deadline-decision-tracker-with-analysis/?source=emp_shared_article

Like Carl English?

Very similar - I bet Darling has a bit better profile and upside. Nate and Carl had very similar final seasons. Nate 21ppg, 4r, 3a on great high volume three point shooting (40% on 8.4 threes attempted a game). Carl was 20ppg, 5r, 2a, and 40% from three on 7 attempts per game. Both played in very weak conferences. Difference is Carl got the hype as he was the best player Canada produced in a while. Nate seems to be way under the radar as he is one of dozens recently. Carl could have been a 2way type player back in the day if those contacts existed.

True. Considering the way the NBA has become a 3 point shooting league, Carl English was ahead of his time. No doubt he would have gotta a legit shot in today's NBA.

He carved out a VERY nice career overseas.

Hopefully Darling gets a legit shot with an NBA squad. Work the GLeague then make shats in the NBA.

[OntZags]

It feels like Dort is playing himself into 'lock' status on a theoretical 'A' Team Canada. Dude's defense is just on point & he's playing within himself on OKC's offense. Super impressed by his rookie campaign.

Still not sure what his agent was thinking.

[mojo13]

It feels like Dort is playing himself into 'lock' status on a theoretical 'A' Team Canada. Dude's defense is just on point & he's playing within himself on OKC's offense. Super impressed by his rookie campaign.

Still not sure what his agent was thinking.

Yeah - I'm bummed about the deal he signed. 4 yrs / $5.4M with only a small portion (1.8M?) guaranteed. It's contracts like these that can get players bitter or depressed - or cause some kind of unhappiness that impacts his game. He looks just happy to be out there at this point, but I wonder how long that lasts if he keeps up the development pace. He is like a 2nd coming of Marcus Smart who is often underrated himself.

Dort has a unique skillset that will be hugely valuable to the SMNT and may be close to a lock for an "A" team for me as well. However that might be moot as I don't think we ever get near 100% turnout. He does add to our fantastic depth at guard - no question about that. His versatility is extremely valuable as well. He may be above Barrett in my eyes at this particular point in time (but I'm not the hugest Barrett fan). I suppose that depends on what role you want to fill and who else is on the floor.
He is looking better than Dillon Brooks too considering how bad he has been since signing his deal. Maybe that is just different expectations coloring my view.

What's Canada's guard depth right now? Something like this?:

Tier One
Murray, SGA, Wiggins

Tier Two
CoJo, Dort, Barrett, Brooks

Tier Three
NAW, Tyler Ennis, Mychal Mulder, Nik Stuaskas, Kevin Pangos, Naz Long

Tier 4
Marial Shayok, Kaza Keane, Kassius Robertson, Phil Scrubb, Dylan Ennis, Kenny Chery

[OntZags]

What's Canada's guard depth right now? Something like this?:

Feels about right. I'd probably slot Shayok into Tier 3. I still like his upside, he's just buried on a pretty deep Sixers team.

Excited to see Mulder next season too whether he can stick with GS. 40% on 10 attempts a game in the G-league is nothing to sneeze at. Thought his defense looked pretty solid too in that stretch he had to end the year.

Is XRM still in the picture? A few other guys like Tommy Scrubb could slot in as well in that fourth tier I suppose & I guess Mane, Mike & Darling are tier 4 wildcards until we see 'em professionally.

Super deep incoming freshman class is awesome too. No surefire NBAers but tons of guys to bolster the professional ranks and odds are a few at least cut their teeth a bit in the NBA.

As for WRT to Dort, with Nurse at the helm, I suspect he's ahead of both Barrett & Brooks at this point. In a perfect world where all of Tier 1 shows up, he's a much more valuable complementary piece than either of those two. But I'm not holding out hope on a perfect world coming to fruition any time soon lol.

[mojo13]

What's Canada's guard depth right now? Something like this?:

Feels about right. I'd probably slot Shayok into Tier 3. I still like his upside, he's just buried on a pretty deep Sixers team.

Excited to see Mulder next season too whether he can stick with GS. 40% on 10 attempts a game in the G-league is nothing to sneeze at. Thought his defense looked pretty solid too in that stretch he had to end the year.

Is XRM still in the picture? A few other guys like Tommy Scrubb could slot in as well in that fourth tier I suppose & I guess Mane, Mike & Darling are tier 4 wildcards until we see 'em professionally.

Super deep incoming freshman class is awesome too. No surefire NBAers but tons of guys to bolster the professional ranks and odds are a few at least cut their teeth a bit in the NBA.

As for WRT to Dort, with Nurse at the helm, I suspect he's ahead of both Barrett & Brooks at this point. In a perfect world where all of Tier 1 shows up, he's a much more valuable complementary piece than either of those two. But I'm not holding out hope on a perfect world coming to fruition any time soon lol.

Yeah - XRM is out there but maybe not even tier 4. He was in the G again this year and was originally listed on a CEBL roster but never ended up playing. He belly flopped in Europe so I recently I haven't considered him that interesting for FIBA. But he should be mentioned.

I did miss Olivier Hanlan though who is in the mix with those Tier 4 names. He had a good season in Greece this past year (finally).

Tommy Scrubb isn't a guard in my eyes (he is a 3 or 4). But I can agree on Shayok.

The kids (Mane, Nembhard, Lawson, Darling etc.), I don't bother with until I see them in a pro setting. Still tough to know what they are at this point. But Nemhard was on the World Cup team so they are very relevant.

[BilboBanginz]

Interesting bit here from Woj on the Future of the NBA at the Olympics:

As the pandemic rages on, there's less optimism about the elite players participating in the Olympics -- including Americans and international stars. The NBA and NBPA will take positions that the Games are important, but the Olympics are barely a priority for the owners -- especially when they don't share in the television revenue that originates from the inclusion of the league's superstars. Organizations see the wear and tear on players in whom they've invested hundreds of millions of dollars. Amid a pandemic, the Olympics mean even less to owners, team executives and the NBPA.

At a minimum, Team USA probably will have to be prepared to bring a much younger, less accomplished roster to Tokyo -- a team profile that could ultimately mirror the rest of the world's entries, too.

[mojo13]

The USA could form a gold medal team from just its foreign based players if they took the time to craft a real team and train together.
Canada, not so much. But we realistically could make it out of the qualifier with the right pieces, a proper training camp and some actual chemistry formed.

Time to rosterbate our best Non-NBA line up!

Tyler Ennis
Kevin Pangos
Nik Stauskas
Dylan Ennis
Phil Scrubb
Kassius Robertson
Oliver Hanlan
Kaza Keane
Aaron Best
Andy Rautins

Aaron Doornekamp
Dyshawn Pierre
Andrew Nicholson
Melvin Ejim
Kyle Wiltjer
T Scrubb
Connor Morgan
MiKyle McIntosh

This seems the top 18 non NBA player pool. Maybe missing a few guys. We have no centers in the mix and not great defensive options at nearly all positions.

Hopefully we can still pull a couple borderline nba players and/or guys who miss the NBA playoffs. But our best hope of a Qualifying team probably comes from the guys above. At least many of these guys have familiarity with each other from the WC and WC Qualfiers.

Perhaps we can keep much of the WC team in place and swap out CoJo, Heslip, Birch, Nembhard for guys like T Ennis, Stauskas, Pierre, Nicholson. That might Not be that bad a team.

[Mirotic12]

The USA could form a gold medal team from just its foreign based players if they took the time to craft a real team and train together.
Canada, not so much. But we realistically could make it out of the qualifier with the right pieces, a proper training camp and some actual chemistry formed.

Time to rosterbate our best Non-NBA line up!

Tyler Ennis
Kevin Pangos
Nik Stauskas
Dylan Ennis
Phil Scrubb
Kassius Robertson
Oliver Hanlan
Kaza Keane
Aaron Best
Andy Rautins

Aaron Doornekamp
Dyshawn Pierre
Andrew Nicholson
Melvin Ejim
Kyle Wiltjer
T Scrubb
Connor Morgan
MiKyle McIntosh

This seems the top 18 non NBA player pool. Maybe missing a few guys. We have no centers in the mix and not great defensive options at nearly all positions.

Hopefully we can still pull a couple borderline nba players and/or guys who miss the NBA playoffs. But our best hope of a Qualifying team probably comes from the guys above. At least many of these guys have familiarity with each other from the WC and WC Qualfiers.

Perhaps we can keep much of the WC team in place and swap out CoJo, Heslip, Birch, Nembhard for guys like T Ennis, Stauskas, Pierre, Nicholson. That might Not be that bad a team.

No they couldn't. They tried that at the 2015 Pan American Games and got the bronze medal playing against B teams from the Americas.

On the Canadian players in Europe, for me personally, Stauskas is better than Pangos or any other Canadian player in Europe is. The only Canadian players from Europe I have seen in recent years that could really be helpful to a team that has medal aspirations at a world FIBA tournament (World Cup or Olympics) are Stauskas (assuming he was healthy) and Birch. The list ends right there.

That's not to say that some of the Canadian players in Europe couldn't play a role on Canada's team. For example, Pangos and Wiltjer could be 11th men / 12th men shooters off the bench 5th guard / 5th big type of players to fill out the last two spots of a roster. But ideally, a guy like Pangos should not be on the roster of any top national team.

Don't misunderstand what I am saying, I know you are talking about if Canada's NBA players don't play. But what I am saying is, you have to understand that someone like Stauskas is better than Pangos is, and yet Pangos seems to have this high regard for being some top player in Europe. He's not. I know he had one very good season with Zalgiris, but the whole system was designed to get the guards wide open shots all game long. His overall skill level and defense - he's a below average guard for EuroLeague standards.

The other payers are not good enough for EuroLeague, other than Wiltjer. But due to his awful defense, he's like a 9th or 10th man type of EuroLeague player. Birch and Stauskas (if he was healthy) are guys that could actually help a EuroLeague team win some games. That's really all I see from Canada's players in Europe.

I'll just be honest about it, as a comparison, other Americas teams like Argentina, Brazil - they have better players than Canada, if we take out NBA players. I think Canada has to have some help other than the guys in Europe, to try to qualify through that tournament. I forget which teams are playing in it, but I know there are some European teams in it.

I just don't see a team with Pangos, Scrubb brothers, Ejim, Doornekamp, Wiltjer making it through a tournament like that, even playing at home. Unless due to the pandemic, the other teams are all devastated roster wise also. Ennis and Ennis could help, but they don't seem reliable in terms of choosing to play and/or being healthy.

I really think Canada needs at least 2-3 of their better NBA rotation players to play. Unless, again, the other teams have similar problems because of the pandemic, which of course could very well happen.

[mojo13]

You sure like to start arguments when none are there. It's like you come in here looking for an excuse to bag on Canadian players.
No one is advocating Pangos is better than Stuaskas. It may actually be true but its doubtful - but even then Pangos was one of Canada's best players in the WC so he is far from irrelevant. No one is advocating that group of players above is a medal contender at the Olympics - I (and most people here) likely think they probably don't make it out of the Qualifier.

You say "The other payers are not good enough for EuroLeague, other than Wiltjer." Yet besides Pangos/Stauskas - all of Doornekamp, Tyler Ennis, Dylan Ennis, Andy Rautins and Dyshawn Pierre prove that comment to be factually wrong.

Argentina just won silver in the World Cup with no NBA players - of course they are better than Canada. I mean - big insight you provided there. Canada handled Brazil fairly easily in the WC Qualifiers so I think Canada is likely better with or without NBA players playing.

And yes the USA can easily put together a Gold medal Olympic team with non-NBA talent, as the assumption is the rest of the World will have no NBA talent either. They can put together 12 man roster of EuroLeague stars if they did it right - let alone the big time talent they could pull out of China. Look at the non-NBA talent pool I list below.

The point of the post above - is that there will likely be no Canadian NBA talent available for the Qualifiers or Olympics if we go that far. So what is the best possible non-NBA talent we can pull from? We damn well know this is not a Olympic medal contending team, let alone making it out of the Qualifier.


In-compete List of Top Americans Playing in Europe:

Cory Higgins
Will Clyburn
Chris Singleton
Anthony Gill
Brandon Davies
Mike James
Brad Wannamker
Quincy Miller
Malcom Delany
Jimmer Fredette
Kyle Hines
Wesley Johnson
Greg Monroe
Tarik Black
Tyler Cavanaugh,
Quincy Acy
Johnathan Williams
Ron Baker
Sam Dekker
Jordan Loyd
Jaycee Carrol
Norris Cole

And on and on...



Best USA players in China:

Jeremy Jin
Lance Stephenson
Ty Lawson
Jared Sullinger
Brandon Bass
Marshon Brooks
Tyler Hanburough
Ian Clark
Shabazz Muhammad
Mareese Speights
Carl Landry
Eric Moreland
Dwight Buyucks
Jason Thompson
Dakari Johnson
Justin Hamilton
Malcom Johnson
Andrw Goudelock
Pierre Jackson
Jamal Franklin
Russ Smith
Jarnell Stokes
Jonathan Gibson
Lester Hudson

And on and on...


If you don't think the USA can win a Gold medal pulling 12 guys from this pool I don't know what to say. What other country has near the talent when NBA players are taken away?

[InfraRedshaw]

How do yall feel about Wiggington? I would think I have him as a tier 3 guy but I found it interesting nobody here mentioned his name. Thanks yall, love tracking this thread

[mojo13]

How do yall feel about Wiggington? I would think I have him as a tier 3 guy but I found it interesting nobody here mentioned his name. Thanks yall, love tracking this thread

There is a good amount of discussion of Wigginton on this thread. Those who have watched him closely remain unimpressed. Main complaint is very low bball IQ / decision making for a PG. Too small for an off guard (weak shooter too)

He is not yet at Tier 4 status for me, but could get there with some maturing in Israel. Kaza Keane, P Scrubb, Dylan Ennis, Kenny Chery, Olivier Hanlan etc are just far better players at this point in time. But Wigginton is still very young.

[Mirotic12]

You sure like to start arguments when none are there. It's like you come in here looking for an excuse to bag on Canadian players.
No one is advocating Pangos is better than Stuaskas. It may actually be true but its doubtful - but even then Pangos was one of Canada's best players in the WC so he is far from irrelevant. No one is advocating that group of players above is a medal contender at the Olympics - I (and most people here) likely think they probably don't make it out of the Qualifier.

You say "The other payers are not good enough for EuroLeague, other than Wiltjer." Yet besides Pangos/Stauskas - all of Doornekamp, Tyler Ennis, Dylan Ennis, Andy Rautins and Dyshawn Pierre prove that comment to be factually wrong.

Argentina just won silver in the World Cup with no NBA players - of course they are better than Canada. I mean - big insight you provided there. Canada handled Brazil fairly easily in the WC Qualifiers so I think Canada is likely better with or without NBA players playing.

Ennis brothers were unable to stay in a EuroLeague team, and neither did much of anything when they played. Rautins is possibly the worst player Panathinaikos ever had. Pierre looks like he was signed to be a 11/12 man. Doornekamp was a 10th man for a below average team for 2 seasons, and he's had the best EuroLeague performance - the only one that could even claim being a EuroLeague level player up to now, but really he's a EuroCup / BCL level player, and that's what he is considered in Europe.

[Mirotic12]

And yes the USA can easily put together a Gold medal Olympic team with non-NBA talent, as the assumption is the rest of the World will have no NBA talent either. They can put together 12 man roster of EuroLeague stars if they did it right - let alone the big time talent they could pull out of China. Look at the non-NBA talent pool I list below.

The point of the post above - is that there will likely be no Canadian NBA talent available for the Qualifiers or Olympics if we go that far. So what is the best possible non-NBA talent we can pull from? We damn well know this is not a Olympic medal contending team, let alone making it out of the Qualifier.


In-compete List of Top Americans Playing in Europe:

Cory Higgins
Will Clyburn
Chris Singleton
Anthony Gill
Brandon Davies
Mike James
Brad Wannamker
Quincy Miller
Malcom Delany
Jimmer Fredette
Kyle Hines
Wesley Johnson
Greg Monroe
Tarik Black
Tyler Cavanaugh,
Quincy Acy
Johnathan Williams
Ron Baker
Sam Dekker
Jordan Loyd
Jaycee Carrol
Norris Cole

And on and on...



Best USA players in China:

Jeremy Jin
Lance Stephenson
Ty Lawson
Jared Sullinger
Brandon Bass
Marshon Brooks
Tyler Hanburough
Ian Clark
Shabazz Muhammad
Mareese Speights
Carl Landry
Eric Moreland
Dwight Buyucks
Jason Thompson
Dakari Johnson
Justin Hamilton
Malcom Johnson
Andrw Goudelock
Pierre Jackson
Jamal Franklin
Russ Smith
Jarnell Stokes
Jonathan Gibson
Lester Hudson

And on and on...


If you don't think the USA can win a Gold medal pulling 12 guys from this pool I don't know what to say. What other country has near the talent when NBA players are taken away?

2015 Pan American Games US roster:

Ron Baker
Malcolm Brogdon
Bobby Brown
Ryan Hollins
Keith Langford
Shawn Long
Taurean Prince
Anthony Randolph
Kaleb Tarczewski
Melo Trimble
Denzel Valentine
Damien Wilkins

finished in third place playing against B / C / under-23 teams from the Americas. They bragged about how much time they had to prepare before the tournament.

That was either the most underachieving basketball team at any level, in any competition, in all of history, or you just might be greatly exaggerating and overrating the level of American players in Europe and China.

Which is more likely? Is it really more likely that just happened to be the all-time most underachieving team, of world basketball history? Is that really more likely than you are hugely overrating those players?

They can't put together a roster of 12 EuroLeague stars. You didn't list 12 EuroLeague stars, and they don't have 12 EuroLeague stars. There are not 12 star EuroLeague star players from that list. Actually, you listed 3, not 12.

The list of guys playing in China.........they might as well just send a G-League all-star team like they did for the World Cup qualifiers. Hell would freeze over before such a group of players could win an Olympics gold medal. They couldn't sniff a gold medal even in the days when NBA players were banned.

Also, how did that G-League all-star team do in the FIBA World Cup qualifiers? They lost to Mexico, they lost to Argentina (with no NBA or EuroLeague players), they were down 20 points to Argentina (no NBA or EuroLeague players) in another game, they were losing twice to Uruguay (without their best player) in the 4th quarter......

How did the NBA G-League champions do at the World Club Cup (FIBA Intercontinental Cup) in 2019 and 2020? They went 0-4 to teams from the Americas League and the Basketball Champions League (BCL). Let me repeat that, they went 0-4 against teams from Brazil and Argentina, and from the secondary level of Europe. And most of the teams from China's CBA are worse than a good G-League team.

In all seriousness, the USA finished 7th at the 2019 World Cup with a team of 10 NBA starters and 12 NBA rotation players...............a team picked from those above players could very well finish in 9th-10th place at the Olympics. The chances they would make it out of their group would be nearly zero.

[Kenter16]

We have a real weakness at the 4/5 once our NBA guys are not included. It was a real glaring hole at the world cup. I guess Andrew Nicholson is our best international big, but he was mediocre, border line useless, in the qualifying games against DR. Next up is Owen Klassen, I guess.
We have enough depth at guard and wing as the list above shows. Even if you can put Olynyk, TT, Boucher and Birch on a roster with our international guys we could be very dangerous. Wishful thinking I guess.

Best we can hope for is non playoff NBA guys at this point. Unfortunately, most of the Canadians in the league play for playoff teams. We will see where TT and Olynyk end up. OKC, Denver, Raptors, Dallas, GSW are basically locks for playoff basketball. Memphis is up and coming and should be on the bubble. Same with Orlando.
Realisticly, we will have at most 2 NBA guys, a couple g league guys and the rest is international league guys.

Its going to be tough to qualify for Japan. Again, the future looks bright, it just keeps remaining the future though.

Sent from my SM-G973W using RealGM mobile app

[Hair Canada]

Mirotic, it's not the first time you've underestimated the American talent in Europe. So let's examine these claims. Just take rankings from Erurohoops.net. You can argue over the location of that player or another, but overall I think they do a fair evaluation:

https://www.eurohoops.net/en/trademarks/942051/euroleague-top-100-players-of-2019-2020-11-20/11/

So what do we have here? Let's cut it only to the first 20. 8 of them are Americans, and 2 of the top 3 (Larkin and Clyburn). And this is even without even mentioning the talent in China.

Now, obviously talent does not guarantee anything, as US teams composed entirely of NBA players have been learning over the last two decades. But that's also no reason to write off this level of FIBA-experienced talent, which is arguably higher than that of any other non-NBA team. Would they win the gold? there are certainly no guarantees. Would they be contenders? certainly. Would they finish 9-10 and have a hard time to make it out of their group? Possible but highly unlikely. Why would players who do so well at the highest levels of basketball outside of the NBA suddenly be reduced to an awful national team? Surely, you need better evidence-based arguments here if you don't want to come off as merely trolling.

[Hair Canada]

We have a real weakness at the 4/5 once our NBA guys are not included. It was a real glaring hole at the world cup. I guess Andrew Nicholson is our best international big, but he was mediocre, border line useless, in the qualifying games against DR. Next up is Owen Klassen, I guess.
We have enough depth at guard and wing as the list above shows. Even if you can put Olynyk, TT, Boucher and Birch on a roster with our international guys we could be very dangerous. Wishful thinking I guess.

Best we can hope for is non playoff NBA guys at this point. Unfortunately, most of the Canadians in the league play for playoff teams. We will see where TT and Olynyk end up. OKC, Denver, Raptors, Dallas, GSW are basically locks for playoff basketball. Memphis is up and coming and should be on the bubble. Same with Orlando.
Realisticly, we will have at most 2 NBA guys, a couple g league guys and the rest is international league guys.

Its going to be tough to qualify for Japan. Again, the future looks bright, it just keeps remaining the future though.

Sent from my SM-G973W using RealGM mobile app

Good analysis. I'm not at all sure that players from non-playoff teams will indeed participate. But if they do, things might not be that bad. First, we really don't know where TT ends up. Olynyk might also be a free agent this summer and if so, it's unclear where he'll end up. Same goes for Boucher.

Now, you also need to consider that the West will likely be a bloodbath next year. The two LA teams, Golden State, Denver, Houston, OKC, Jazz, Portland, Phoenix, Dallas, New Orleans, and Memphis. That's 12 teams competing for 8 spots. 4 of them would be out. If we consider a healthy Golden State, the two LA teams, Denver, and Houston as close to a sure thing, that leaves 3 spots for 7 teams. I would say a healthy Portland might be the best out of these. So there is truly no guarantee for OKC, Memphis, Dallas, or New Orleans. This means any of SGA, Dort, Brooks, Clarke, Powell, and NAW might be available to play.

Possible others: Co Jo (Sac is quite unlikely to be in the Western mix), Barrett, Birch (who knows about Orlando), Lyles.

On short, we'll have to wait and see how things play out with non-playoff players. But if they participate (or some), the only two I would count out almost for sure are Murray and Wiggins.

[mojo13]

Gonna be weird cheering AGAINST the teams with Canadians on them next year! Because I will...


At this point we don't even know if non-playoff guys will be available for the Qualifiers. Unless you guys have more info, I have not seen anything showing a schedule yet. Just commentary that the regular season MIGHT run from early December to mid-late June. With the playoffs going into August.


As per Kelly Olynyk above, I can't see any chance that he opts out of this contract. The open market could be very ugly with a reduced cap and teams quite scared to spend. Not a good year for TT and Boucher to be FAs. TT should have taken that extension he was rumored to be offered.


I do enjoy the cherry picking arguments of Mirotic. To even think their World Cup Qualification performance was on a knock on USA is incredulous. They cobbled together G-League randos (many farfrom all-stars - hello David Stockton) with wildly different teams for every window and only a couple days to prepare, yet they go 10-2 (+220) with a surprise loss in Mexico City and splitting with what is eventually the WC Silver Medal team in Argentina. Terrible!!!! These teams (and the Pan-Am team) are all about who will even play for the USA on short notice, making very strange and imperfect rosters. Imagine if they all those guys above raising their hands to play and they can form a real roster and train a real team.

By the way this is the USA roster that beat Argentina:
Josh Adams
Kyle Casey
Chris Chiozza
Charles Cooke
Michael Frazier II
Reggie Hearn
Tanner McGrew
Xavier Munford
Chinanu Onuaku
Cameron Reynolds
Travis Trice
Stephen Zimmerman

Ummmm....yeah...

Here is the team that lost to Argentina as comparison:
Joel Berry II
Reggie Hearn
Scotty Hopson
John Jenkins
DeAndre Liggins
Eric Moreland
Chasson Randle
Cameron Reynolds
Richard Solomon
Jarnell Stokes
Travis Trice
Tyler Zeller


A whole 3 common players and like each equally different iteration of Team USA having a couple days to prepare. Also quite a different caliber from the guys listed above.

[casoldi]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nUTHTn-fMt7YgZfpP3JIFqmR0zxNt3-OeWVc-gVpP3w/edit?usp=sharing

This is the spreadsheet I update to keep track of which schools the young recruits commit to. I couldn't find something similar online so I decided to make one.

Don't look past 2020 it's not up to date.

[frumble]

Re the discussion of non NBA bigs, anyone know Bennett's health status and where he is going to be playing when he returns?