Canada men’s basketball team’s training-camp roster missing key players
TORONTO — It was supposed to be the summer Canada’s top basketball talent finally stepped up to the plate, when the toughest task for the team’s staff would have been selecting a squad from the deepest talent pool in history.
That task might have meant cutting an NBA player. It would have been a good problem to have.
But as the Canadian men’s team tipped off its pre-FIBA World Cup training camp on Monday morning, the talk — again — was more about who wasn’t there than who was.
Along with Andrew Wiggins of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who already was ruled out, several other prominent Canadian players won’t play for Canada, including Denver guard Jamal Murray, New York Knicks rookie RJ Barrett, Cleveland’s Tristan Thompson, Dwight Powell of the Dallas Mavericks, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker of the New Orleans Pelicans.