Canadian basketball has never been as prominent as it is right now. The NBA is suddenly laden with budding stars like Andrew Wiggins, Kelly Olynyk, Tristan Thompson and Corey Joseph, not to mention key contributors like Nik Stauskas, Anthony Bennet and Robert Sacre, to name a few.
All these players are within only a few years of each other age-wise, which makes one wonder what sparked the golden age of Canadian hoops.
Historically, the Canadian basketball scene has been terribly bleak. Just look at the catastrophe that was the Vancouver Grizzlies…
A Bleacher Report article on the downfall of the Grizzlies
In 1995 the NBA expanded north of the border into Canada with the addition of the Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies, under the presumption that the success of the NHL franchises of each city would translate well to the hardcourt. While the Raptors were never a great team through the 90s (and really up until 2013), they weren’t quite the through-and-through disaster the Grizzlies became.
Blame it on bad drafting, or perhaps bad business moves, but whatever it was the Grizzlies didn’t do a whole lot to spark interest in up-and-coming athletes to put away their skates and pick up a pair of Air Jordan’s instead. They finished with the worst record in the NBA for the six seasons they were in Vancouver (101-359).. and ultimately made the move in 2001 to Memphis.
I should note that at this time there were very few Canadian-born players in the NBA.
The Toronto Raptors weren’t a whole lot better, but in terms of growing basketball in Canada, they can be credited with one big piece to the puzzle: Drafting ‘Air Canada’, Vince Carter 5th overall in 1998.
Half man, half amazing…what more need be said? Carter took the league by storm, winning Rookie of the Year in 1999 and putting on arguably the best Slam Dunk Contest performance in NBA history in 2000.
He was the poster boy the Canadian basketball scene needed.
Steve Nash will be remembered as one of the greatest Canadian basketball talents of all time, but while he was doing his thing down in Dallas for the Mavericks, Carter was someone Canadians could watch on TV every couple of nights and be amazed each time.
The showmanship and raw athleticism of Carter was something that Canadian kids could see on TV and say “that’s what I want to do when I grow up”.
Those kids are now grown up and are tearing up the NBA. Anthony Bennett became the first Canadian selected first overall in the 2013 NBA draft, and was followed up the next year by the phenom, Andrew Wiggins.
Back to back years with a Canadian first overall. Wow.
These young men, all in their early to mid-20s are causing an uproar in a country that is now seeing success on the international stage. Canada just missed their first chance to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio (though they can still enter the backdoor next summer). Couple that with the recent success of the Toronto Raptors, who have finally become a perennial playoff contender, and we have a full-fledged revolution.
Vince Carter set the table for Canada’s basketball boom, and with a talent-rich list of Canadians taking over the NBA (14 active players and growing), the revolution doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon.
Steve Nash is someone who will undoubtedly be credited with helping the growth of Canadian basketball, but his claim to that may still be a couple years out as his prime was during his MVP seasons in Phoenix in 2005-2007…leaving the kids who idolize him perhaps a couple years too young for the pros yet.
The addition of players like Jamal Murray, a Canadian freshman at the University of Kentucky who may well be the cream of the crop of this young talent, will likely give much more credit to Nash as a role model.
There may be no hard evidence to prove that Carter was in fact the one who got it all started, but if one man could inspire that many Canadians, imagine how many will be inspired as they get to grow up watching Wiggins and company…
The Charity Stripe 