Kenter16 wrote:Nick Nurse was on the Bob McCown Podcast today. Had a couple interesting things to say.
There was a dinner/get together held in Vegas during summer league. 15 players were invited. These guys are who Basketball Canada wanted to make 'the core' from. 11 players showed up. Nick alluded to one more being bought into the program that wasn't there, but it wasn't clear. In his words, 'of the 11 there, I'd expect that +/- 1 of them will make up our core'. Not sure if that means he expects 10 or 12. Somewhere between 10 and 12, I guess. Of the players there he said there were passionate speeches and that it means the world to them. He mentioned that they are committed to playing for Canada every summer over the next 3 years.
So, since I can't help my self, I dug into who showed up to summer league that wasn't playing. Didn't find a large number of the guys notably attending games, with the exception of Lu Dort and Shai. Andrew Wiggins was reportedly working out with the GS summer league team. I believe that both RJ and NAW made appearances as well, but that's just going off of memory.
Does anybody else know of anybody that was in Vegas for summer league? My assumption is that the others include KO, Dwight Powell, Khem Birch and Cory Joseph. Really would like to find out somehow if Jamal Murray was there, doesn't look like it through internet sleuthing.
I just listened and didn't come away overly positive about it. No commitment was given just asked for. The guys were asked to go back and think about it and respond at a later date. A couple quotes attributed to players that I really didn't like:
"what are you going to do if none of us commit to play?"
"Hey coach, I am 100% in, but what if no one else plays?"
Maybe I am reading too much into it, but that tells me there are plenty of fence sitters waiting to see which way the wind blows seemingly like every summer. If a couple key players bail, then it creates a snowball effect. I'd like to see more passion out of guys - players saying I'm in no matter what and a don't care who else is playing. I'm still pretty skeptical they can even get same 5-7 NBA guys playing each of the next three summers let alone 11 or 12 +/- one.
How do you even hold they guys accountable if they "commit" to play. Plenty of these guys said publicly many times over the course of two seasons that they were playing in the Qualifier in Victoria. I think Birch and Brooks said they were 100% in no matter what. What is accepting an invite to training camp but a commitment to play? (Olynyk, Birch, TT, Brooks, Clarke, Alexander, Ejim etc).
It also still really bothers me to hear Nurse admit they had terrible prep period for Team Canada leading into the Olympic Qualifier. Nurse admits it was bad, that they we poorly prepared but "learned allot" from it. That's a really bad look and fully on Nick Nurse and Rowan Barrett's shoulders. Plenty people this forum recognized the inadequate prep schedule right from the start.