The Golden Generation, page 22
And while only a select number of those players make the final roster 196for summer competitions like the World Cup and Olympics, the winter core deserves a lot of credit for helping turn around the national team.
“It’s a whole country,” RJ says. “Even the players that do the work getting us in position to even go to these tournaments — it’s everybody. It’s not just a small group of people.”
Chapter 17 History in the Making
Kelly Olynyk, RJ Barrett, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Zach Edey, Lu Dort, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Dillon Brooks pose with bronze medals after beating Team USA at the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
Associated Press
198“It’s about proving that Canadian players can compete at the highest level. I want to make an impact not just on the court but by helping elevate the national program. That’s how legacies are built.”
— Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
When Nick Nurse signed an extension with Canada Basketball in August of 2021, it was assumed that the Iowa native would at least fulfill his contractual obligation until 2024. But following a disappointing season with the Toronto Raptors in 2022–23, when they finished ninth in the East and failed to reach the playoffs, the Raptors decided to part ways with their head coach after five seasons at the helm.
Nurse landed a new job as the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers later that spring, pushing him to step down from his post as head coach of Canada. “I just knew how busy it was going to be,” Nurse says.
“I probably could have demanded that I could do it,” he adds. “But I just didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do for me or for the Canadian team or for the Sixers.”
In the end, Nurse was on the bench for 19 games with Team Canada, finishing with a 12-7 record. His insistence to demand a three-year commitment from NBA players was a massive step forward for an organization that had a history of short-term thinking, ultimately helping wrangle commitments from some of Canada’s best players. “That was a big vision. And a vision takes a plan, and a plan takes a lot of work,” Nurse says. “And to not be there to see the qualifying moment or be a part of it . . . that’s hard.”
As Nurse’s time with the Raptors was beginning to wind down, general manager Rowan Barrett started to search for experienced FIBA coaches to join his staff and potentially succeed Nurse. And on June 19927, 2023, Canada announced that Spanish international and Sacramento Kings associate head coach Jordi Fernandez would be taking over.
With just 59 days remaining before the 2023 FIBA World Cup, Fernandez had his work cut out for him. “It almost came out of nowhere,” said Fernandez, who originally interviewed to be Nurse’s assistant before the head coaching job opened up. “I told him it would be an honour for me to be able to be a head coach to a team like this.
“I felt like this could be like the opportunity of my life.”
* * *
Fernandez was born in 1982 in Badalona, Catalonia — an autonomous region in northeastern Spain that is widely considered the European capital of basketball. “It’s the number one sport over soccer,” Fernandez says. “So that’s why I fell in love with basketball.”
When he was 13, Fernandez participated in a “fire run” — a frantic Catalan celebration that consists of a procession of people dressed as fire-breathing monsters and dragons led by horned devils emitting fireworks and chasing people in the streets. Spectators can choose either to run away from the creatures or challenge them. And Fernandez — always the thrill seeker — challenged a fire-breathing monster and burnt his right hand.
A few days later, during the final seconds of championship game of the Under-14 nationals as the point guard of Badalona’s best club, Joventut, Fernandez drove to the basket and got fouled, giving him an opportunity to ice the game at the free-throw line. But after missing the first, Fernandez unraveled the bandage that was covering his burnt shooting hand, tossed it aside, and fought through the pain to sink the final free throw for the win.
“Everyone’s competitive nature is different,” Fernandez says. “For me, it’s [about] sharing with everybody else, with my teammates, having a team that was connected . . . We have common goals as a group, and everything we do, we have some sort of identity which helps your competitiveness.”
Fernandez played at Spain’s highest level until he was 15, when he transitioned to coaching — a natural adjustment for the 6’1” point guard 200who always used his voice to organize people on the floor. When he was 19, Fernandez went to school for sports science, and as part of his degree, he spent semesters in Norway and the Netherlands. He had little money, didn’t speak English, and worked at different bars and bounced around different hostels to get by.
“Once I went through that year, I felt like I could do anything,” Fernandez said. “It was the growth of that experience, having to figure things out. You don’t know how much you can learn until you push yourself to the limit.”
After working with a number of youth clubs throughout Europe, Fernandez landed an internship at Joe Abunassar’s Impact Basketball development program in Las Vegas in the summer of 2008. He paid his own way there and started from the ground up, rebounding for the athletes, cleaning the gym, and working with the younger campers. “I didn’t do it because I wanted to work in the NBA,” he says. “Everything was learning and excitement and growing and pushing to higher levels and learning things about player development that was not done in Europe.”
One thing led to another and Fernandez landed a job as a player development coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2009, leaving Spain for good and beginning the long, arduous task of climbing his way up the NBA coaching hierarchy. He worked with everyone from G Leaguers trying to make it into the NBA, like Danny Green, to NBA All-Stars, like Kyrie Irving, Shaquille O’Neal, and LeBron James, getting through to players because he knew what he was talking about, could communicate effectively, and, like many of them, had come from the ground up.
“The thing that makes Jordi the most special is the ability to connect,” Mike Brown, who hired Fernandez in Cleveland, said. “His ability to build relationships is just unbelievable.”
“He listens to you and what you have to say,” Jamal Murray says. “It’s not his way or the highway.”
After surviving five head coaches and three general managers in Cleveland, Fernandez became head coach of the Canton Charge G League team before leaving to work as an assistant coach in Denver and Sacramento. He coached Canadian NBA players Murray and Trey Lyles, but the most attractive part of Fernandez’s resumé for Canada Basketball was his experience coaching internationally in the summers.
201Fernandez was indoctrinated in the Spanish basketball system, working with youth clubs in Spain before coaching the junior national team in 2013 and then working as an assistant coach on the senior men’s team between 2017 and 2019, when they won the FIBA World Cup and climbed to number-one in the world rankings. “He’s steeped in FIBA,” Barrett said. “He understands this game very, very well. He’s gonna understand the officiating, he’s going to understand the other teams, the systems they’ve learned, he’s going to understand those countries.”
Working with the Spanish federation taught Fernandez how to build a sustainable winner by creating a culture where everybody sacrificed for the flag and the veterans passed down that understanding to the young players. Even during years when certain NBA players couldn’t play due to injury or contract, they kept winning because “the rest of the group kept fighting, kept working,” Fernandez says. “There was success, there was adversity, but they continue. They kept fighting, and that’s what gives you a window of many years of success.”
“They built the number-one program in the world because they cared about it,” he added. “Were they talented? Yes, but the number-one thing was how they created a team.”
* * *
The first thing Fernandez did upon getting the Canada job was call each of the summer and winter core players and introduce himself. And once 18 of the best Canadians got together on the court on August 1, 2023, for training camp in Toronto, Fernandez preached the need for the players to buy in to their roles so that they could achieve something that was bigger than any one individual.
“It’s hard to take over a group of players who already know each other,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “He did a great job connecting with the guys and earning our trust.”
It wasn’t the first time Canada entered a tournament with several NBA players. But what was different in 2023 was the level of role definition and buy-in. “In ’15 we had talent, but it took some time for guys to accept the role,” former assistant coach Dave Smart says. “It is not easy: 202You’re in the NBA, and you’re one of the first [Canadians] to be in the NBA . . . And then you come back in your national team, and you don’t want to be coming off the bench when you’re already sort of trumpeted as an NBA guy.
“So, I just think it goes in stages.”
Canada had a clear style of play that emphasized speed and playing in transition, while getting paint touches and ball-reversals in the half court. They finished with the second-best offense in the 2023 World Cup, averaging 99 points on 50 percent shooting and 40 percent from three. And once Cory Joseph and Jamal Murray went home due to injuries at the end of camp, Canada had a clear hierarchy, too, with Gilgeous-Alexander at the top of the food chain, organizing the offense and taking the most shots; Barrett and Dillon Brooks on the wings, feasting on mismatches and in transition; Olynyk and Powell filling in the gaps and acting as leaders; and Alexander-Walker and Dort coming off the bench to wreak havoc on the defensive end. Phil Scrubb, Melvin Ejim, Zach Edey, Trae Bell-Haynes, and Kyle Alexander rounded out the roster.
“We all knew our roles, played our roles. And it was something that we didn’t have in the past,” Olynyk says. “Everybody knew what they had to do, did it to the best of their abilities, and trusted each other 110 percent that we would be on the same page and be out there competing for each other.
“I think that mutual connection and that mutual respect and trust was something that I don’t think we’ve had in previous years.”
It helped that this was a group of long-time friends, composed primarily of Toronto-area-raised hoopers that were born between 1996 and 2000. Most of them had played with or against each other growing up in the school system and the OBA. Plus, Alexander-Walker and Gilgeous-Alexander are first cousins, Phil and Thomas Scrubb are brothers, Brooks and Barrett grew up in Mississauga, while Olynyk, Powell, and Ejim had been playing together for Canada for nearly a decade.
“You know everyone that’s in the building,” Brooks said. “It’s a family environment.”
Following a week-long training camp in Toronto, the team hopped on a plane to Berlin, Germany, to begin a five-game exhibition schedule to get prepared for the World Cup. They played cards the entire flight, 203eventually downloading UNO on their phones and continuing to play whenever they were on busses to practices or hotels.
When they got to Grenada, Spain, for the rest of their exhibition games, Fernandez took them on a walking tour and handed out a list of local restaurants and dishes to try in the city, organizing team dinners where the players all sat together away from the coaches. “He wanted to keep the guys together,” Phil says. “He wanted us to constantly be together as a team and a unit.”
When the team got to their hotel, they started playing Ping-Pong, cards, and Mario Kart on a Nintendo Switch with a big projector in the games room, talking trash and getting into heated arguments “pretty much every time,” Mitchell says. “I think when you bring high-level competitors, no matter what the game is, nobody wants to lose,” noting that Alexander-Walker and Brooks were especially bad losers.
“A lot of times it got really heated, but that’s kind of the name of the game. And I think that’s also why that summer’s team gelled so well, because those little conflicts kind of help build character and help you understand who you’re with.”
It was immediately clear how much that comradery translated to the court as Canada beat New Zealand and Germany to win the DBB Supercup exhibition tournament Hamburg before beating Spain in Grenada. “It helps a lot,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “There’s a relationship. So in the game, if you yell at a guy, you know it’s coming from a great spot. It’s camaraderie at the end of the day and the greatest teams have that.”
“Everybody has been talking about how talented we are, but that’s not the definition of a team,” Fernandez said. “These guys have approached every single day since August 1 to build a team.”
* * *
Canada had several obstacles to overcome if it was going to come out of the World Cup with a medal or Olympic berth. Aside from having a brand-new head coach and a roster lacking international experience, Canada fell on the wrong side of the bracket due to its lackluster 15th world ranking.
204Placed in Group H alongside France, Latvia, and Lebanon playing in Jakarta, Indonesia, they happened to fall on the same side of the bracket as powerhouses like Germany, Australia, Slovenia, and Spain — teams they would have to beat in order to make it to the knockout stage. On the weaker side of the bracket playing in Manila, Philippines, were the United States and the Dominican Republic, who each posed a threat to Canada’s goal of finishing in the top two from the Americas teams in order to qualify outright for the 2024 Olympics.
Canada wouldn’t have any time to ease into the tournament, either, with the opening contest being marked as the matchup of the group stage as Canada took on number-five-ranked France — a team that won silver at the 2021 Games and the 2022 EuroBasket and had not lost to Canada at the senior level since 1984.
Despite being without teenage phenom Victor Wembanyama, France was stocked full of NBA players such as Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, and Evan Fournier, who helped them jump out to an 18–14 lead after one quarter, holding Gilgeous-Alexander scoreless after missing his first five shots.
Canada’s only bright spot of the first quarter was Brooks, who set a tone with his defense and had a pair of huge dunks to get his teammates fired up early. And Canada started to turn things around in the second quarter after Gobert elbowed Olynyk in the face and was assessed an unsportsmanlike foul, forcing the French big man to take a seat on the bench. Canada went on a quick 10–3 run, with Alexander-Walker and Dort creating turnovers that enabled them to get out on the break, providing a spark for the Canadians, who went into the halftime break up 43–40.
What happened in the third quarter was only possible because for the first time since Steve Nash led them at the 2000 Olympics, Canada finally had a superstar. And by the time the 2023 World Cup began, 25-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander had established himself as one of the best players in the world, coming to life in the third quarter as he blew past his defenders, knocked down mid-range jumpers, and made all six shots he took in the quarter, outscoring the entire French team by himself 13–8. He finished the game with a game-high 27 points, 20513 rebounds, and 6 assists. Canada’s defense also ratcheted up its intensity and they outscored the French 52–25 in the second half and ran away with a 95–65 win.
“You guys can see here a guy that is gonna be the MVP of this World Cup,” Fernandez said after the game.
“We’ll see,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s not my main focus, obviously. The gold medal is my focus, but if that comes with it, I’ll be happy; if it doesn’t, I won’t care.”
It had been seven years since Gilgeous-Alexander was last with Team Canada in Asia playing a crucial game against France. Only in the 2016 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Manila, he never got on the floor. “I was really young. I didn’t play a minute in a game. I was pissed about it,” he said. But he learned how to be a pro and was inspired to come back and represent his country nearly a decade later.
* * *
After landing at his dream school Kentucky for college, Gilgeous-Alexander was the lowest-ranked recruit in a seven-man class — a four-star prospect and the 43rd overall recruit in the class of 2017.
But when he entered Kentucky’s starting lineup in January, after coming off the bench for the first 15 games of the season, the 6’6” point guard immediately became the team’s best player, leading the Wildcats to an SEC tournament championship and MVP. “I’ve been the underdog in most of my career,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “So outcomes never came right away. I had no choice but to work hard and trust it and just kind of let it play out.”
After the SEC tournament, Gilgeous-Alexander’s NBA Draft stock shot up from the low 20s to the lottery, where he was selected 11th overall by the Charlotte Hornets in the 2018 NBA Draft before being traded to the Los Angeles Clippers. There, he earned the starting job 10 games into the season as a rookie on a 48-win team. However, after his rookie season, Gilgeous-Alexander was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in a deal that landed both Paul George and Kawhi Leonard on the Clippers — one that had massive ramifications for his hometown 206Raptors. And while the Clippers clearly didn’t believe in his talent, Gilgeous-Alexander looked at it as an opportunity to be the face of his own franchise. “I’d say it worked out in my favour,” he said.
In his first season with the Thunder, Gilgeous-Alexander was able to pick the brains of veteran point guards Chris Paul and Dennis Schroder, doubling his scoring total to 19 points a game while helping lead the Thunder to a 44-28 record. But it wasn’t enough to advance past the first round of the playoffs, and the Thunder traded away their veterans and went into a multi-year rebuild following the 2019–20 season. All the while, however, Gilgeous-Alexander continued to focus on improving as a player and a leader. And by the time the 2023 World Cup rolled around, he was coming off an impressive 2022–23 season where he averaged 31 points — the most ever by a Canadian — 5 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, and a block on 51/35/90 shooting splits, finishing fifth in MVP voting. Only one other NBA player had averaged those stats for an entire season before. His name: Michael Jordan.
