'It still stings': Canada Basketball using Olympic letdown as fuel for Los Angeles, says CEO
CBC
In the weeks following Canada's loss to France at the Paris Olympics men's basketball tournament, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander gathered teammates in a gym at Humber College near Toronto.
Players included Olympians, those who missed the cut and a few Oklahoma City Thunder players, too.
A couple months later, Canada's women's team — fresh off an 0-3 Olympic performance — silently gathered in Toronto with players, coaches, support staff and the national federation to chart a plan toward Los Angeles 2028.
In December, a 3x3 group that ran roughshod over its opponents for three years in the lead-up to Paris, but heartbreakingly missed the podium while there, returned to the winner's circle at the FIBA AmeriCup. Then they did it again at the inaugural Champions Cup earlier in March.
Paris was supposed to be a renaissance for Canadian basketball, featuring three teams all with legitimate medal hopes.
Instead, it was the embodiment of an old saying: the higher the climb, the harder the fall.
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"It still stings, I won't lie," Canada Basketball CEO Mike Bartlett said in a recent interview with CBC Sports. "Our athletes, our coaches, our staff, we all wanted more and wanted better and great. That's why we're in sports."
In the aftermath of the Olympics, Canada Basketball has undergone significant change.
Women's general manager Denise Dignard and head coach Victor LaPena moved on, as did men's head coach Jordi Fernandez. None were fired, but in all cases one or both parties seemed to realize something was holding them back from the necessary level of commitment.
Bartlett said Canada Basketball is aiming to have coaching replacements in place by late spring or early summer.
He noted that does not mean, however, that the head coach in either case will necessarily be from Canada.
"There will be more Canadian content on our bench than ever before on every age-group team all the way up to senior team. That I can promise Canada for sure," he said.
Bartlett added that there is plenty of interest in both jobs.
