Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, rest of Canada's NBAers left wanting more in 2024
CBC
Canada's best men's basketball players were left wanting more in 2024.
Hamilton's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished second in NBA MVP voting for the 2023-24 season, the best performance among a record-high 27 Canadians in the league. His Oklahoma City Thunder had a disappointing second-round exit in the NBA's Western Conference playoffs, and Canada's men's senior team finished fifth at the Paris Olympics.
Gilgeous-Alexander said that it was only once Canada fell to France 82-73 in the Olympic quarterfinals on Aug. 6 that he realized exactly what he'd lost.
"The opportunity to medal and win, we didn't get a chance to do it and being in it, you kind of take it for granted," said Gilgeous-Alexander after the Thunder visited the Toronto Raptors on Dec. 5. "Every year I get a chance to win an NBA championship, and every four years I get a chance to try to win the Olympics."
Canada qualified for its first Olympic men's basketball tournament in 24 years at the 2023 FIBA World Cup, earning a best-ever bronze medal at that event with a 127-118 win over the United States on Sept. 10, 2023.
The Canadians were a perfect 3-0 in the group stage at the Olympics this past summer, advancing out of Group A as the third seed in the knockout stage. Then Canada ran afoul of France in the quarters for the disappointing fifth-place finish.
WATCH l Canada falls to France in quarterfinals:
"I think obviously the World Cup was awesome. The Olympics could have went better, I think," said centre Kelly Olynyk of Kamloops, B.C., who also plays for the Raptors, on Wednesday. "Obviously, it's not how any of us wanted to finish but when you look at it retrospectively, it's our best finish in however many years or whatever. First time we made it in however many years.
"A little bit of a small victory, I guess."
Canada has finished fourth at the Olympics twice: the 1976 Montreal Games and the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
"I think a lot of us on that team think we could have done better than bronze at the World Cup, and we could have done better than fifth at the Olympics," he said.
Gilgeous-Alexander said that he's going to work even harder if he gets another chance to win an Olympic medal.
"In four years, you never know what will happen, where I was four years ago, and where I'll be four years from now, but it's a special opportunity," said Gilgeous-Alexander. "If, God willing, I'm around for that opportunity, I'll definitely approach it a little bit different."
The quadrennial for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics has already begun and Canada is playing well on the international stage.
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