Head coach Jordi Fernandez is welcoming the high expectations facing Canada's men's basketball team.
The 15th-ranked Canadian men's senior team is getting set to open the FIBA World Cup on Friday with a game against France in Jakarta, Indonesia. With seven NBA players on its 12-man roster — the most of any team aside from Australia and the U.S. — Canada is viewed as a contender at the 32-team tournament.
"Expectations are great. You know why? Because people think you're good," Fernandez said at a press conference in Jakarta on Thursday. "The reality is we've never played together, so one thing we have to do is show it.
"We like the expectations. At the same time, it's outside noise. We know what our reality is and the challenges that we're facing, they stay in our locker room and once again, that's the way we're going to handle it."
Canada also has its sights set on an Olympic berth for 2024.
"That's the goal. That's been our goal for, whatever it was now, 13 years," captain Kelly Olynyk said, referring to his first FIBA world championship experience in 2010. "Unfortunately, every time there's been something that's happened, something that's come up, a bad break, this or that.
"If you keep pushing the wall, pushing the wall, eventually you're going to break through and I think that's what our goal is right now, this is our time to breakthrough and we need to do it as a team together.
"There's not one person on this team that's going to do it by themselves. But that's our goal, (the) collective goal is to, when we leave the World Cup, we know we're dialed in and we're preparing everything for Paris next summer."
The national men's team last made an Olympics in 2000. The squad fell just short in the last quadrennial after a semifinal loss to the Czech Republic at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying tournament in Victoria in July 2021.
Canada needs a top-two finish among the seven Americas teams to qualify for Paris 2024. After its Group H opener against No. 5 France, Canada plays 43-ranked Lebanon on Sunday and 29th-ranked Latvia on Aug. 29 in Jakarta.
The final phase of the tournament — held from Friday to Sept. 10 — will be played in Manila, Philippines, with the top two teams from all eight groups making it to the knockout round to set the stage for the quarterfinals.
Canada will be led by all-NBA first team guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder, guard RJ Barrett of the New York Knicks and centre Olynyk of the Utah Jazz.
Wing Thomas Scrubb and guard Kenny Chery were the final cuts to the lineup when the roster was finalized on Thursday.
Denver Nuggets star guard Jamal Murray was ruled out of the World Cup on Aug. 16 after participating in training camp in Toronto in early August.
He stated in a release that, after consulting with his team and medical staff, he needed time to recover. Murray is two months removed from the end of his NBA season after the Nuggets won their first title in franchise history in June.
The Kitchener, Ont., guard sat out the 2021-22 season while recovering from surgery for an ACL tear.
Canada finished with a FIBA-best 11-1 record in World Cup qualifiers and a 3-2 record in exhibition action leading up to the tournament, including wins over world No. 1 and defending World Cup champion Spain and 11th-ranked Germany.
Olynyk is content with how the group looks.
"We had a good training camp in Toronto, got over to … Germany and Spain and got some good games in," he said. "And then we've got over here and I think we've had a few days to adjust and acclimate.
"Obviously it's a big time difference, long travel, so it takes your body a little while. But I think today we probably had our … best practice of maybe the summer. So we're feeling pretty confident (and) good going into tomorrow."
Fernandez shed some light on his squad and their ability to learn on the fly in a little over three weeks time.
"If you have watched the way we've played, and the physicality and the way we run the floor, we obviously have to use our strengths," he said. "It would not make sense at this point to play half court basketball against the best programs in the world when we are good at running and running over people.
"It's going to be a little bit different than some other FIBA, especially European styles. But these guys have been great at adjusting, at learning and at figuring out a way to play high-level basketball in FIBA, which is very different to what we're used to (in the NBA).
"The growth is going to have to continue but we are ready for the challenge."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 24, 2023.
Abdulhamid Ibrahim, The Canadian Press
