The title of the Raptors and the huge television audiences that attracted it led Grunwald, as he did in a recent telephone interview, to proclaim that ‘it is now a basketball nation’. Other prominent members of the Canadian basketball community say the same. The surest way to sway persistent skeptics is to send men’s and women’s teams to Tokyo, but no one really knows which team will coach Nurse. Canada’s women, led by the WNBA’s Kia Nurse (no relationship with the men’s coach) and number 4 in the world, are considered medal candidates.
Jamal Murray, Canada’s best male player, could make a deep turn in the NBA playoff game with the Denver Nuggets, which could potentially prevent a national team’s result. Andrew Wiggins, another top talent from Golden State, has not played for Canada since 2015. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City’s thriving guard, is sidelined by the plantar fasciitis in his right foot, which is Canada’s efforts to put him on the off-season rigor of international basketball.
“We have an NBA team,” Knicks Canadian RJ Barrett said last month, insisting they would have enough to qualify regardless of who plays.
Lake and Blasko know this very well: they can do no more to increase the team’s chances.
“For the people of Oakland, it was just the floor that took up space that they would probably never use again,” Lake said. “For us, it’s the most important floor in Canadian basketball history.”
Hyperbole? Not to Grunwald. A host of pay-per-view positions and derivative concepts since 2002 have yielded no Canadian sports magic – including when Masai Ujiri, Toronto’s president of basketball operations, donated a two-dollar Canadian tone coin under the team’s practice track in Tampa, Florida. , posted in December. It was still, to put it mildly, a tough pandemic season for the displaced birds of prey, but Grunwald just laughed when he told Lake and Blasko’s perseverance.
Grunwald has nearly eight years removed from his last taste of the NBA, with the Knicks, saying he can not help but be overwhelmed by ‘the joy they have for basketball’.
“It’s really refreshing,” Grunwald said. “It makes you feel good about our sport and about Canada.”