For much of 2023 and 2024, Canada saw itself ignited as a basketball nation in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Winning the bronze medal at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, Canada was slotted as a medal favourite heading into the Olympics, in the men’s first appearance at the Summer Games since 2000.
But a quarterfinal matchup against host France saw those medal dreams quickly dashed, with Canada losing by an 82-73 score on August 6.
For Canada coach Jordi Fernandez, it’s clear that the wound still stings, even if it’s had a few months to heal.
“You play the worst game at the worst time, and you lose,” Fernandez told reporters Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena. “But I’m proud of the way the guys competed, even being down.”
Fernandez, now the head honcho of the Brooklyn Nets, was coaching an NBA game as head coach in Canada for the first time on Thursday. A former assistant on the Spanish and Nigerian national teams, Fernandez took from his past experiences to try to build Canada into a future medal contender.
“The group that I worked with in Spain, that group won a lot for those 20 years, and this group here [in Canada] is going to win because you’ll see a lot of our guys owning what happened. They care about it. And the whole thing that you need to do is stay together and believe in each other,” Fernandez said.
A pair of Raptors — RJ Barrett and Kelly Olynyk — were among the members of Canada’s Olympic squad. Barrett was one of the tournament’s key players, putting up 19.8 points per game, good enough for fourth in the event, trailing only Japan’s Yuki Karamura, countryman Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“[Barrett was] obviously a big part of what we did, the success we had. And I have no doubt in my mind, he’s very young. You feel like he’s been playing in the NBA for a while, but RJ is young, and he’ll continue to get better,” Fernandez said.
For Barrett, he should be a key piece of whatever the Canadian Olympic team looks like in the next instalment, should they qualify for 2028. Names like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray will likely headline the roster once again, though admittedly the former’s been the clear top Canadian in the NBA over the past few seasons.
Olynyk, meanwhile, played just 36 minutes over the course of the four-game tournament in France, including just three in the quarterfinal loss. It’s likely his first and only Olympic chance as a player, with no certainties of how long he’ll be able to maintain a pro career that’s already spanned 12 seasons.
But Fernandez praised the 33-year-old Toronto native, who has been a longtime staple of the Canadian national program.
“Everybody respected him… his work ethic was amazing,” Fernandez said. “You can lean on guys like him and Dwight [Powell], that they will do and say the right things, and they will always support what’s best for the group, and that’s part of winning and having success in the long run.”
While Barrett has blossomed into a star this season with the Raptors, Olynyk’s played just five competitive games since his appearance in Paris, missing much of the start of the season with a back injury.
“I don’t expect any miracles overnight,” Rajakovic said about Olynyk’s return to action. “We know what kind of player he is, we know what he brings to the table. I think he’s getting better game to game.”
And for Toronto’s young face of the franchise, he believes that Olynyk’s lengthy basketball experience — in Paris or in his 761 NBA games across six franchises — can only serve to help the Raptors and Canada moving forward, no matter how much or how little he may end up playing.
“His high IQ is off the charts,” Scottie Barnes added about Olynyk. “It’s incredible for this team… he just helps so much. He’s really gonna be key a piece of that second group, or whatever group he’s gonna be in.”
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