TORONTO — First, we’ll start with who intends to be at the 2028 Olympics, playing for the Canadian men’s national basketball team, trying to earn a medal for the first time since 1936, rather than who isn’t and why.
Yes, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the two-time NBA most valuable player, is among the 23 players revealed on Monday by general manager Rowan Barrett as he introduced the program’s new head coach, Gord Herbert.
As will his cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who recently won the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award after his breakout season with the Atlanta Hawks. And RJ Barrett, who had the best year of his career with the Toronto Raptors. And Dillon Brooks, Canada’s World Cup hero from 2023, who sparked a cultural shift with the Phoenix Suns. Along with Andrew Nembhard, who averaged career highs across the board for the Indiana Pacers and veteran big man Kelly Olynyk, who is playing in the NBA Finals with the San Antonio Spurs.
Those are the returning NBA pieces from the team that lost in the quarterfinals at the 2024 Olympics in Paris who have committed to be part of the program for this summer’s World Cup qualifying windows in Hamilton and Quebec City and, presuming Canada qualifies, at next summer’s FIBA Basketball World Cup and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
It’s a formidable group, and the choices that Herbert and Barrett will have to augment it are talented and plentiful. Deciding who won’t make the final 12-man rosters will be difficult.
It’s why Barrett didn’t hedge when stating the program’s goal for 2027 and, ultimately, the Olympics in 2028:
“In this [Olympic cycle], our expectation is to get to the top of the podium. We believe we have the athletes; we have the experience and now we believe we have the coaching in place to take this next step,” said Barrett, who took over as GM in 2019, helping Canada to a best-ever bronze medal finish at the 2023 World Cup and a fifth-place finish in Paris.
But the step will be taken without one of the greatest players in Canadian basketball history, as Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray won’t be playing this summer or — it would appear — for the rest of the current Olympic cycle.
While the list of players for this summer’s window wasn’t framed as the definitive player pool for the following two summers of competition — there is a wider list of more than 50 players that Barrett said have signed letters of commitment to make themselves available for national team duty — it very much is the foundation for what Herbert hopes will be his final team.
“Just to be really honest with you, if guys don’t commit this summer, they’re not in,” said Herbert.
Which means — as Barrett later confirmed — that the national team will be without 2024 Olympian Murray. The 29-year-old guard is coming off his first all-NBA season and has a proven track record as a big-game player, showcased when he helped lead the Nuggets to the 2023 NBA championship.
“Jamal Murray is not committed to [playing] for the program moving forward,” said Barrett. “This is a guy who has represented Canada since he was a child. He’s got tremendous desire for the country, but sometimes there’s things going on with athletes that prevent them from doing that.”
Also not included in the player pool are 11-year NBA veteran Andrew Wiggins and rising fourth-year guard Shaedon Sharpe of the Portland Trail Blazers.
Barrett mentioned some of Canada’s younger NBA players — Dalano Banton (Boston Celtics), Olivier Maxence-Prosper (Memphis Grizzlies), A.J. Lawson (Toronto Raptors), and Caleb Houstan (Atlanta Hawks) — are among those who were in the pool of players committed to play for Canada, but aren’t among the 23 players that will be in consideration for World Cup qualifying this summer.
As well, he noted that the hope is that Zach Edey — the seven-foot-three, 300-pound centre who has shown so much promise with the Grizzlies but who missed most of last season with an ankle injury before having surgery in March — will be able to play next summer and beyond. Dallas Mavericks veteran and 2024 Olympian Dwight Powell is also on the radar, but won’t be with the team this summer.
There is plenty of reason to be optimistic about the men’s team’s chances. It’s always helpful to have one of the best players in the world in Gilgeous-Alexander to build a team around, and Canada has a large pool of talented guards and wings that will be fully in their athletic primes by 2028, and the core has the benefit of having continuity from the bronze medal win at the World Cup in 2023 and the Olympics in 2024.
But ruling out Murray so early in the process is a choice, and a departure from the past Olympic cycle. In 2022, Canada announced a ‘summer core’ of players from which the final rosters would be picked for the World Cup and Olympics. At the time, Murray was included but never participated in any competitions before being added to the Olympic roster. Meanwhile, the door was left open for Wiggins — who wasn’t part of the summer core — to join the Olympic roster late into the process before he finally withdrew from consideration on the eve of training camp.
If Herbert has his way, the door won’t be open this time around, it seems.
“The national team is not for everybody, and that’s okay,” he said Monday. “We’d rather have guys say ‘no’ than make a commitment [and not keep it]”.
Murray wasn’t at his best at the Olympics in part due to injuries at the end of the 2023-24 NBA season that cut into his preparation, and there may have been some issues of fit given it was the first time he’d played with the national team since an appearance at the Pan Am Games in 2015 as an 18-year-old.
But after Gilgeous-Alexander, he’s easily Canada’s most accomplished player, most dynamic offensive option and best shooter, and averaged 25.4 points, 7.1 assists and 43.5 per cent shooting from three — all career-best marks — this past season.
But for Herbert, commitment is the bedrock of his coaching philosophy honed throughout a long international coaching career. Joining Canada as a head coach is a full-circle moment for the 67-year-old Penticton, B.C., native who played for Canada at the 1984 Olympics and 1986 World Cup.
“The vision I have for us going forward is gold medal at the World Cup and gold at the Olympics,” said Herbert, whose international coaching resume includes leading the German national team to a bronze medal at the 2022 European Championships, gold at the 2023 World Cup and a fourth-place finish at the 2024 Olympics. “Are you in or are you out? This is where we’re going [and] you need your best group of players to commit to the national team, commit to the program, to commit to the timetable.”
Herbert has done this before, drawn hard lines on top players’ availability and participation. With Germany — while dealing with a much shallower talent pool than Canada has — he didn’t open the roster up for the likes of Maxi Kleber or Isaiah Hartenstein after they didn’t initially provide the three-year commitment Herbert was looking for. The two big men represented 40 per cent of Germany’s NBA player pool at the time.
“I talk about commitment a lot because this summer we only have 20 days together as a team, that’s it,” said Herbert. “Next summer — assuming we qualify for the Worlds, we have three weeks, plus the World Cup. It’s not a lot of time, we need a commitment because you need, as a national team, a core group to go from year one to year two to year three. You can’t start over every year.”
The men’s national team is starting from the strongest place in its history, with an all-time high fifth place in the world rankings and a first-ever podium finish at the World Cup. But they want to go higher over the next three years and are hoping Herbert — the most accomplished international coach in program history — can take them there.
But they’re going to have to get there without Murray, one of the best players Canada has ever had.