Canadian men will have to deal with basketball’s Group of Death

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Canada will send its strongest and deepest team to the strongest and deepest Olympic men’s basketball tournament in history.

Nothing in the past compares to the depth of this rather stacked field.

Eleven of the past 13 MVPs in the NBA are playing in the 12-team tournament. The great Canadian, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the athlete of the year, finished second in MVP voting this season and will play in the event as will three-time MVP winner Nikola Jokic, who will suit up for Serbia.

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In the tournament openers alone — setting the tone for the quality of the event — Gilgeous-Alexander will be facing two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo when Canada plays Greece. The next night Team USA with its bevy of MVPs, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant Joel Embiid, will meet up against Jokic and Serbia.

And that’s just the start of the round-robin tournament which will only eliminate four teams before the playoff round advances to Paris.

But first, the so-called Group of Death, the soccer term turned basketball here for the round robin grouping that awaits Canada.

Team Canada opens with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Greece. It then plays Australia, the longtime contender and bronze-medal winner from the previous Olympics. And the third game is against Spain, not necessarily the Spain you remember from years gone by — medal-winners in Beijing, London and Rio — but a team that inherently understands how to play FIBA basketball, which is unlike the basketball we watch in the NBA.

“It’s arguably the toughest group in the toughest tournament,” said Leo Rautins, the former national team coach and player, and current basketball commentator. “The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter who’s in your group? There are no easy games in the tournament.

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“It’s the Olympics. When you’re losing one night in the NBA, you don’t care, you go on to the next night. When you’re losing in a FIBA tournament, it matters how much you lose by, whether your plus-minus at the end of the round-robin will affect your standings.

“You want to win games by as many points as you can and lose them by as a little as you can. It’s a different animal that way. You have to be really smart and the experienced international teams are so good at this.”

And this is where the apparent Group of Death could become daunting for those in Group A. Good teams will be playing good teams in the round robin. Blowout scores will be unlikely. When the tie-breakers come down to point differential, there are are no soft teams to run scores up against.

Should Canada need a tie-breaker to advance, that could work well against them.

“One upset can turn the whole tournament upside down,” said Jay Triano, who starred for the fourth place Team Canada in 1984 and coached them in 2000. “Often it comes down to one game for one team. And it’s not like you’re in a playoff series, you can’t afford one off night.”

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Having qualified for its first Olympics since 2000, Team Canada has 10 NBA players on its roster, led by the backcourt of two-time all-star Gilgeous-Alexander and Jamal Murray, who played a huge role in Denver winning the NBA championship in 2023. “That’s their advantage,” said Triano. “You saw what Steve (Nash) did for us in 2000. He almost carried us into the medal round. The backcourt is great for Canada.

“I like what they have, two great scoring options in Shai and Jamal and two premier defenders in Dillion Brooks and Lu Dort. Dillon might be the best international player of the bunch. A lot of it has to do with his physicality. He’s a tough guy to play against.”

The rest of the Canadian roster – led by RJ Barrett, Kelly Olynyk, Dwight Powell and Andrew Nembhard, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Trey Lyles — is mostly comprised of NBA veterans and historic role players.

This is unusual for Canada, having this much depth, but not so great if it matches up against Team USA somewhere in the playoff end of the tournament. Not only does USA have LeBron, Curry and Durant in its starting lineup but it has NBA champion Jayson Tatum and emerging superstar Anthony Edwards coming off the bench.

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“But if everything goes their way, I honestly believe (Canada) can win a gold medal. And if not that, I think they can win a medal,” said Rautins. That may be his passport and history with Team Canada talking, but getting there — to the medal round, to the playoff round — is a challenge unto itself.

You have to finish Top Two in your Group to automatically advance to the Final Eight. And if not, you have to qualify for one of two wild card spots, which by itself is a mathematical equation.

Then the big boys meet the big boys — or the deepest smartest teams meet the deepest smartest teams.

“My concern for Canada, length,” said Rautins. “We don’t have great size. When (Zach) Edey decided not to play, we missed out on a player of his size (7-foot-4). I’m disappointed that Andrew Wiggins isn’t playing. I think he wanted to play. If he’s engaged and wants to play, I want him on my team.

“You lose guys like that they’re hard to replace.”

But you play, as head coach Jordi Fernandez would say, with those you have with you, not those who aren’t there. Worry about what you can worry about.

Twenty four years ago the country fell in love with Nash and Team Canada and what almost happened and could well fall love with this Team Canada again. The country just celebrated a fourth place finish in a soccer tournament. Being fourth and trying hard won’t be considered good enough for this basketball team in Paris. The expectations are higher than that.

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But Rautins believes the team can grab the attention of the nation, the way the Toronto Raptors managed five years ago on their championship run.

“We’re still living off the byproduct of winning the NBA championship in Canada and what that’s done for basketball in the country,” said Rautins. “I think this team can do more than that. Sports brings people together. It elevates people. It does the impossible.

“If you win a medal here, if the people get behind you, I believe what it would do for basketball in the country would surpass what winning an NBA championship did.”

But first, there’s a tournament to play. Games to be won. Reputations to be made. So much at stake for the first men’s basketball team to make it this far in 24 years.

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