Canada Basketball

[guyroch]

There were times we were just happy to sneak in and quailfy in Word Events ... This week 101-59 against Brazil , Canada 79-67 against Dominican Republic and 91 - 70 aginst Puerto Rico .... 3-0 and on off to the semi's in the FIBA Americas under 18 ...

[guyroch]

In a game that featured Zion .. Nickeil-Alexander Walker stood out for me .. He is so smooth and impressed with his defense . RJ Barrett got major mins and had himself a 17 point night .

[guyroch]

NBA guard

Goran Dragic

has confirmed he is retiring from the Slovenia team that won the European basketball championship.

Dragic says on Tuesday, "I achieved what I wanted, the gold medal, and this is the right time to bid farewell."

The 31-year-old Dragic led Slovenia with 35 points to beat Serbia 93-85 in the final on Sunday in Istanbul, earning the MVP award.

He says Slovenia's qualifying campaign for the 2019 world championship will start in November, and it would be impossible for him to play due to his professional duties with the Miami Heat in the NBA.

Tens of thousands of jubilant Slovenes greeted the new European champions on Monday in the capital of Ljubljana.

[guyroch]

Shane Larkin, American point guard of Turkish basketball club Anadolu Efes, is eager to play for Turkey's national team. Hey Vanvleet

what are you doing this summer ? lol … This guy may get his wish but Matt Bonner tried for years ( heck he even married a Toronto woman ) and Canada kept on saying no .

[Rudy Bargnani]

Any chance Canada can host one of the tourney's? Do we have enough money to make a convincing bid? Hope Barrett is on top of that.

This came up on a pod I was listening to the other day I think Blake Murphy and William Lou. Blake said he asked Rowan that question after this past tournament ended and he got a canned answer like they were evaluating everything or something.

But I agree would be awesome if they could work to get a tourney in Toronto it may help get local talent to play.

[GOLDBLUM]

Any chance Canada can host one of the tourney's? Do we have enough money to make a convincing bid? Hope Barrett is on top of that.

Some speculation in the article guyroch posted suggested it could likely be in one of Serbia, Lithuania, Croatia I think, that corner of the world. Not sure why.

But yeah, the closer to home the better our chances of guys showing up.

[planetmars]

Any chance Canada can host one of the tourney's? Do we have enough money to make a convincing bid? Hope Barrett is on top of that.

[golden]

One guy on twitter who follows this type of stuff and always seem to have Canada news fast . Has Canada in a Pot with Germany ,Dominican Repulblic , Venezuela … Hey with Murray plays and we can get some better big men then I can see Canada winning this group . I am sure RJ will be playing .. Kelly Olynyk is a free Agent and so he might not play in qualifier but he might play if they qualify .

That's only 4 teams. Problem is that there are 6 teams in each of the 4 tournaments, so who are those other 2 teams in our group? Croatia & Lithuania? Only the top team in each tournament qualifies for the Olympics.

I think the idea of "pots" is that one team from each pot comprises a tournament group of 6. That means we probably won't be playing those teams you mentioned.

[Hotshot]

We will be in a group of death no matter what. Better have at least 5 NBA players on the starting roster for this.

[octothorp]

One guy on twitter who follows this type of stuff and always seem to have Canada news fast . Has Canada in a Pot with Germany ,Dominican Repulblic , Venezuela … Hey with Murray plays and we can get some better big men then I can see Canada winning this group . I am sure RJ will be playing .. Kelly Olynyk is a free Agent and so he might not play in qualifier but he might play if they qualify .

Is he talking about a draw pot or a group? The way I assume this is happening is that they rank all the teams according to FIBA rankings, and then divide them into pots based on that, and then randomly draw one from each pot into each tournament. Germany, DR, Venezuela and Canada would be in pot 4, which makes me think this is what he's talking about. So a group we'd be in would have a team from three better pots, ourselves, and two teams from worse pots. Something like Russia, Italy, Turkey, Canada,New Zealand, Tunisia would be a realistic group based on these pots.

[guyroch]

lol international basketball is a mess.

Well Greece maybe cheering for the Bucks to not make the Finals ..

[S.R.]

lol international basketball is a mess.

[guyroch]

I feel like I read or inferred from one of guyroch's links that we won't be playing exclusively the Americas, but that any teams from around the world not already qualified will be divided into 4 groups and play each other. So we could be up against European, Asian and African teams as well. If that's the case... we have to hope we avoid who? ... Greece, Lithuania, Serbia maybe...

I could be wrong though.

One guy on twitter who follows this type of stuff and always seem to have Canada news fast . Has Canada in a Pot with Germany ,Dominican Repulblic , Venezuela … Hey with Murray plays and we can get some better big men then I can see Canada winning this group . I am sure RJ will be playing .. Kelly Olynyk is a free Agent and so he might not play in qualifier but he might play if they qualify .

[golden]

I feel like I read or inferred from one of guyroch's links that we won't be playing exclusively the Americas, but that any teams from around the world not already qualified will be divided into 4 groups and play each other. So we could be up against European, Asian and African teams as well. If that's the case... we have to hope we avoid who? ... Greece, Lithuania, Serbia maybe...

I could be wrong though.

Unfortunately you are right. In 2016 it was a mixed global pool and France won our bracket. Chances look really slim now.

[GOLDBLUM]

If we can't beat Brazil, Dominican, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay and Venezuela, then we definitely don't deserve to go the Olympics. I fully expect we'll get the big guns for this Qualifier.

I feel like I read or inferred from one of guyroch's links that we won't be playing exclusively the Americas, but that any teams from around the world not already qualified will be divided into 4 groups and play each other. So we could be up against European, Asian and African teams as well. If that's the case... we have to hope we avoid who? ... Greece, Lithuania, Serbia maybe...

I could be wrong though.