Canada's off to Turkey

Canada’s back on the world basketball stage.

With Jermaine Anderson playing his best game of the tournament and four clutch free throws in the dying seconds, Canada beat the Dominican Republic 80-76 on Friday night at the FIBA Americas world championship qualification tournament in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Anderson, for years trying to shake the tag of "national team point guard who isn’t Steve Nash" had a brilliant second half, eventually pouring in 21 points to lead Canada, which now returns to the world championships for the first time since 2002.

The magnitude of the win cannot be overstated. With solid development programs at the under-19 and under-17 levels, Canada desperately needed to see some success at the senior level to give the teenagers something to aspire to.

And now, because of the win over ex-Raptor Charlie Villaneuva and the Dominicans, Canada will join the world’s elite next summer in Turkey.

Joel Anthony and Andy Rautins made key free throws in the final 20 seconds for Canada, which rode some hot long-range shooting to the win.

Canada was 14-for-27 from three-point range and Anderson was five of eight after going just 3-for-21 on three-pointers in the first seven games of the tournament.

Canada now faces Brazil in a relatively meaningless semifinal of the 10-team tournament and will face either Argentina or Puerto Rico for gold or bronze on Sunday. The semis and finals are played just to establish seeding going into next year’s worlds.

All Canada, all the time

Oh yeah, the rest of the day. I’ve got some oral surgery ahead (yeah, lucky me!) so I have no idea when I’ll be back to do comments or how I’m even going to feel leading up to the big game tonight. So bear with me if the comments are slow coming or I’m not my usual jovial self.

Until then, a whole bunch of Canada:

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ANDRES LEIGHTON/AP

It's a big game today, but qualifying will be a reach for Canada.

How significant is this game for Canada today? Well, considering they haven’t been at a global tournament since 2002, I’d say it’s pretty dang big.

And the question is, who plays the starring role?

The biggest thing about this team is that it’s a collection of nearly equal talent, there is no one guy who’s shown he can put the team on his back when it’s necessary and carry it, single-handedly, to a win.

Look at all the good teams in Puerto Rico:

Brazil’s got Barbosa.

Argentina’s got Scola.

Dominican Republic’s got Charlie V.

Puerto Rico’s got Larry Ayuso or even Carlos Arroyo.

Here’s Leo yesterday:

“If you go back, it was the same thing in 2007 (when Canada failed in its bid to make it to the Beijing Olympics), I think we had six or seven different guys lead us in scoring. We don’t have a star and in a tournament like this, you need different players on different nights.”

Yes, that’s true. But it’d sure be nice to have that one consistent stud who can get the job done, wouldn’t it?

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Whenever you get to this point in any international tournament, you’re always worried about the, um, effort issue of some teams.

Not saying teams go in the tank or anything but once goals are achieved, the grind of eight games in nine days, with the prospect of two more on the weekend back-to-back, tends to have teams, um, coast.

Argentina, for instance, upset Puerto Rico last night in what had to be a hugely emotional game and that gave the Argentines a trip to Turkey for sure. What’s that mean for today, when Argentina plays Uruguay, with Uruguay desperately needing a win to get into a three-way tie with Canada and Dominican Republic?

I did notice that yesterday, a day after he killed Canada with 31 and earned his team its berth at the worlds, Brazil’s Leandro Barbosa got the day off.

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You check out that Raptors television schedule?

All that’s missing, I swear, is The New VR (which I presume is at least middle aged now).

Seriously, I know of no other franchise in the league that spreads its broadcasts out over five networks, or even four if you count TSN and TSN2 as one entity, as they’d like you to so I won’t.

Is it good? Well, it’s not horribly bad, let’s put it that way.

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You know, of course, that this Canada game today isn’t live on television anywhere, right?

The Score, which has done an admirable job picking up the feed and making it available to viewers here, isn’t about to pre-empt one of its money-makers – Friday night wrestling – to show Canada-Dominican Republic, no matter how important the game is.

So the game, which actually begins at 6:30 p.m., won’t be on television until 10 p.m.

Spoiler alert: I presume we’ll get something up right away so if you don’t want to know, don’t look until midnight or so.

Of course, I expect you all to look and beef up the number of hits, okay?

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Hmm, check the second item here; maybe Canada gets a wee break with one of the top Dominican players unable to go this afternoon.

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So, I’m talking to one of our honchos here in Star webland and we’re trying to figure out new bells and whistles for next season. Not sure what we’ll eventually come up with – the toughest part of this gig is finding new and fun things to do each season – but if there are things you might be interested in, drop a line in the mail bag and maybe something will come to mind for us.

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This has been something stuck in a lot of craws this week, judging by the dozens of e-mails and comments I’ve received. Guess we better deal with it in one fell swoop and I use this submission only as representative of them all.

Q: I really enjoy your blog and I hope you had a great time with family in Van City. I wonder what is your take on the prediction by ESPN that Raptors will be 9th and will miss the play off next year? Are we in deep delusion here?

O A, Toronto

A: Wow. As I said, this created a bit of a tempest over here and just shows how, um, excited some of you can get. Don’t take this personally but, really, who cares was ESPN’s “experts” say collectively? It’s not like it’s for certain to come true; predictions aren’t generally worth a thing or than a talking point.

That said, you want to rationalize ninth?

They are coming off a 33-win season with two new starters, one possibly a raw rookie; an entire new bench and a coach with a grand total of about 60 games under his belt. They’ve got a bear of a schedule to start the season and if things go bad right off the bat, they could stay bad all year.

The starting centre has had one and a half good years and one and a half bad years in his career; the power forward may ultimately be distracted by daily questions about his future and while the bench comprises new players, they have to learn an entirely new system and get used to playing with each other.

That’s the case for ninth.

Now, I don’t particularly agree, I can see them most definitely in the top six and, if everything works perfectly, the top four.

But the case can be made that as much as the talent quotient has improved – and it has – it’s going to be tremendously hard to go from 33 wins to, say, 49.

The “predictions” are nothing more than guesses and opinions, getting people talking about them and worked up about them is exactly what they’re designed to do. And in that case, they did it perfectly.

I think a lot of people need to relax at the moment, actually.

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Canada keeps its hopes alive

Canada kept up its end of the bargain at the FIBA Americas world basketball championships qualification tournament in Puerto Rico today.

An easy 97-65 rout of Panama means Canada will have to beat the Dominican Republic on Friday night to have any chance to play next year at the worlds in Turkey.

Even a win, however, might not be enough depending on how Uruguay makes out in its last two games. If they split and Canada beats the Dominicans, it will create a three-way tie for the fourth and final qualification spot.

Canada kept its hopes alive by blitzing Panama with seven three-pointers in the first 13 minutes of Thursday afternoon’s game, rolling to a 45-24 lead and coasting home to the easy win, snapping a four-game losing streak at the 10-country tournament.

Andy Rautins led Canada with 23 points while Carl English added 16 and Jesse Young poured in 14. Canada, which came into the game shooting 38.2 per cent from three-point range and 49 per cent from the field against over-matched Panama.

The local TV details are out

The Raptors are once again all over the television dial.

But at least every game in the coming NBA season will be broadcast somewhere by someone.

As this team press release shows, TSN and TSN2 will do 50 of the 82 regular season games; The Score will have 20; another 10 go to the CBC while RaptorsTV gets the final two to broadcast on its own.

No big changes from a year ago, actually, except that the TSN2 games will be available to Rogers Cable subscribers in Ontario, where they were not a season ago.

No broadcaster changes, either. Jack Armstrong does the TSN and TSN2 games, Leo Rautins does the Score and CBC games and Sherman Hamilton is the analyst on the two RaptorsTV games.

Matt Devlin’s the one constant, he’s the play-by-play guy for all 82.

A little bit late but well worth it, probably

Ooops

Holy Time Zone Change-induced Sleep-in Day, Batman.

It’s tough getting back to normal out here in the East after more than a week out there. I’ll try to be better tomorrow.

Anyway, short and sweet today, gotta get this up so I can get the grass cut before settling in for the big Canada-Panama game this afternoon.

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News! News!

Buckle your seat belt, hang on to your hats, take a deep breath news!

(That’s perhaps an overstatement but it is early September, after all)

Anyway, I’m told that we may learn as early as this afternoon what the local broadcast schedule is for next season!

A shocker, I know.

No real idea on how it’ll split up but I do expect another five-network season with The Score, TSN, TSN2, CBC and RaptorsTV each getting games.

Now with the TSN2 fiasco solved (it’s available everywhere if you want to pay whatever surcharge the money-grubbing suits at Rogers Cable think they can get out of your wallet), at least we know all the games can be seen. Again, at a cost, but they can be seen.

One of the interesting things to me is what’s going to happen during the Olympic fortnight next February. TSN and TSN2 are probably dead in that period – I think they’ll likely be showing Olympics 24 hours a day – so who’s going to have the seven Raptors games in that period? Again, we could find out this afternoon.

And I’m sure that’ll spark all kinds of comment and discussion because, as we’ve learned all summer, you are a passionate lot regardless of the substance of the issue being discussed.

I don’t anticipate any significant change in the broadcasters, Matt does every game of play-by-play, Jack Armstrong gets The Score and CBC, Leo gets TSN and TSN2 (oops, that would be the other way around, Jack on TSN, Leo on The Score, my mistake) and I would hope that Sherman Hamilton continues to do colour on any RaptorsTV games because I thought he did an excellent job in that role in limited opportunities last year.

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Speaking of the mail, I could use some but here’s one from earlier this week:

Q: ACC always does some kind of renovations over the offseason what is in store for the upcoming season? Would you have that kind of inside information to share as well?

Amit P, Toronto

A: Sure, all kinds. The entire west end of the concourse has been blown up and will be shopping, housing, bars, restaurants, starting in the fall. It’s all part of the housing development there and, really, what says sports and entertainment empire better than 80 storeys of condos.

But it’s all still a big secret. We were supposed to get some super-secret sneak peak at it this week but that’s put off until the end of next week.

I can only assume the private lounge for the grunts isn’t quite complete yet.

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Speaking of that question, there’s one other little thing I just learned yesterday. There’s some work being done to the weight room portion of the practice facility on the third floor to make some improvements.

I will say this about the Air Canada Centre and what the Raps have done: Their practice gym is one of the best in-arena facilities I can think of and the players have no reason not work out, given the equipment, the location and the calibre of the gym.

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The daily dose of Canada stuff:

Yes, they were beaten by a better team in Brazil yesterday afternoon, I think that was apparent right from the start when Barbosa treated ‘em like pylons for most of the first quarter.

But they did get the help they needed – Puerto Rico beat Dominican Republic in the final game last night – and Canada still has an outside shot at making it to Turkey next year through the front door.

As I mentioned in today’s story from the paper – which you can read here if you haven’t already and if you haven’t already, shame on you – it’s going to take wins over Panama today and Dominican Republic tomorrow just to get them into a three-way tie for the fourth spot and then it’ll come down to a convoluted points-differential tiebreaker between Canada, DR and Uruguay.

And my head hurts just thinking about the mathematical repercussions so we’ll leave that for another day.

One thing has struck me through the games I’ve watched Canada play in this tournament – and the disclosure is that I didn’t see wins over Mexico or Virgin Islands – is their utter reliance on jump shooting is a dangerous route to go. But, I guess, without any kind of true inside presence – and while I like Joel Anthony and Jesse Young as bangers, they are not the smoothest of post operators – shooting is what they have to do.

Trouble is, they don’t create enough open looks. I saw Levon Kendall, in what looked like a Mike Meeks role, get a handful of 15-footers in the first quarter against Brazil and he knocked them down; I hardly saw him get that same shot in the final three quarters and I think he ended up with one more bucket.

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I believe, for now, that’s it. See ya in the morning.

There's no place like home

Ah, home, sweet home.

Super Dog’s glad to see everyone (not the least bit bitter at being left with the friendly, neighbourhood house-sitter, it seems), it was nice to back in the comfy, womfy confines of Casa Doug and now life, we hope, can return to normal.

As normal as it gets, I guess.

Funny thing about vacation, though. Just because you’re away it doesn’t mean the grass doesn’t grow or the bills don’t come in the mail or that life suspends itself completely for a week or so. Guess that means there’s stuff to do today, along with trying to ferret out news and watch Canada-Brazil.

Speaking of …

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What now for Canada? Well, a miracle might help.

RICARDO ARDUENGO/AP

Don't count on a wild card spot for Canada at the worlds.

Seriously, as we mentioned yesterday, it’s probably going to take three wins in four second-round games to make it to the semifinals and the loss yesterday to Argentina – where they didn’t play horribly and we simply beaten by a better team – was probably a killing blow.

There is a way – a longshot of all longshots – for Canada to qualify even if they finish out of the top four in Argentina but I certainly wouldn’t bank on it.

FIBA, in an effort to give relative developing nations a chance to “grow the game” has left open four “wild card” spots for next year’s tournament in Turkey.

But, here’s the gig.

If you’re FIBA, won’t you give one to Africa, where the game is truly just developing, maybe another to Asia and one to Europe because the seventh best team at EuroBasket probably deserves it.

And let’s say that leaves one for FIBA Americas. Do you give it to Canada, a country that hasn’t played in a significant senior international event since the 2002 world championships, where they finished 13th out of 16 countries? I’d be surprised, actually.

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I’m desperately trying to come up with some Raptors news, or at least something marginally interesting you might not know and, frankly, I’m out of stuff at the moment.

Wish it wasn’t so, and maybe things will change once I really get back in the swing of things talking to people in the organization but we’re in that dead zone where players are just getting ready to drift back into town and the GM’s busy thinking about the season rather than continuing the demolition of his roster.

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Almost five hours in seat 21D with two fighting siblings in 22C and E and a newborn in 20E and a gaggle of screaming urchins in my left ear makes a flight home a very, very, very, very long.

(I know kids will be kids, especially ones about two or three years old but surely to all that’s good in the world, parents need to exhibit some level of control over the urchins out of simple respect for the other 150 people trapped in the airplane. It’s common courtesy and certainly not too much to ask. Oh yeah, the kicking of the seat back? That sucks, too. End of rant).

However, the never-ending journey was made slightly more bearable by the presence of a copy The Breaks Of The Game, the excellent David Halberstam tome about the Portland Trail Blazers that, to me, is the gold standard of Season In The Life Of … writing.

And where does one pick up a copy to replace a long lost one?

Well, at the Elliott Bay Book Store, one of the all-time great bookstores I’ve ever been in; a reason to wander around the lower part of downtown Seattle. Makes one long for the Sonics, indeed.

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Why do I think Ricky Rubio played David Kahn like a fiddle through this entire buyout-no buyout, come-not come schmozzle that seems to have finally ended? Why do I think Ricky – and his agent – used the Timberwolves as leverage to get out of his Joventut contract so he could sign with Barcelona with no intention of even thinking about the NBA for two more seasons?

I think Rubio’s a unique talent who will have a great NBA career, there just seems to be something special about his game. However, he hasn’t distinguished himself at all during this whole process.

But it seems he got what he wanted, two more years in Europe, a manageable buyout at that time and it would not surprise me in the least if his rights don’t get traded by Kahn sometime before the 2011 season arrives.

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Let’s do one out of the early mail:

Q: About a month ago Jose mentioned in an interview that his leg injury was still healing. Do you know if it has healed? Is their a chance that it won't heal and he'll need surgery?

CJ L, London

A: When I spoke to him early this summer, whenever it was that Bosh was over at his camp, his leg was fine, his finger (on which he had minor surgery after the season) was fine. There is no chance either won’t heal and will require further surgery.

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Oh, if you get a chance to hear Jimi Hendrix cover Like A Rolling Stone from the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival, do it. Sitting and listening at the Experience Music Project at Seattle Centre (Thanks, Paul Allen!) was tres cool.

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Hey, did you hear they’re having the Olympics out in the Vancouver area? Like next year or something.

Well, having seen a whole bunch of the facilities – the sliding area at Whistler, the ski jump hill, at least parts of the downhill course, I presume, while going peak to peak at Whistler-Blackcomb – it seems to me everything’s under control.

One debate I’ve heard waged among the brethren and sisteren who’ll actually go cover the big event is whether you’d like to spend the entire Games in Whistler or Vancouver or travel to and fro as required.

Trust me, folks (and I say this with all due respect to Vancouverites), I’d get my butt to Whistler and stay ensconced up there for as long as I could.

It’s nice, the venues are relatively close together and if anyone’s thinking it’s going to be easy getting back and forth from Vancouver, they’re nuts.

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Digression, still.

Okay, so they show some old episodes of Mad Men on the miniature TV screens on the seat back in front of you and as I’m watching one, the one dude looks familiar.

Check the deep, dark recesses of my mind and it seems the guy who plays Sal from the art department was the guy who worked as a “celebrity bartender” one night when I was hanging in the lobby bar of the team hotel in New Orleans

Mixed a mean martini, as I recall.

But no re-runs of 30 Rock on the system, That bites.

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Hey, remember me?

Hey, catch me up. What’d I miss?

Not that much, it seems.

Great trip, lots seen and lots done but, quite frankly, it’s time to go home. Luckily, there are airplane seats waiting for us later today and things can return to relative normalcy.

But it’s not like I haven’t been paying attention:

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Okay, Canada.

ANDRES LEIGHTON/AP

Jermaine Anderson is doing all he can, it's just not enough.

Caught the bitter end of the bitter Uruguay loss – and that might be the one to keep them out of the worlds – and then the entire Puerto Rico stinkbomb sitting at a nice little bar, the Cactus Club Something-or-other, in beautiful downtown Vancouver on Sunday night.

(If I can find an airport saloon out here before the long flight home, maybe I can see this afternoon’s affair with Argentina; any YVR suggestions greatly welcomed).

Anyway, what’s it all mean?

Well, I know wacky things happen in the world of qualifiers and anyone can beat just about anyone but I have to think it’s going to take three wins in the next four games for Canada to have any shot at qualifying for the worlds through this tournament.

And if you look at past performance charts – and the rosters, results and style of play in this tournament – it’s becoming apparent that Brazil’s the cream of the crop and beating them would be a monumental upset.

So, what’s it come down to?

Well, beating Argentina this afternoon is a virtual must, by my calculations; at least a win there gives them some wiggle room tomorrow against Brazil.

Then they have to get Panama on Thursday, setting up what I can see is a winner advances, loser goes home game against Dominican Republic on Friday evening.

The trouble, as it’s been for Canada since the 2002 worlds – the first tournament that the Nash fellow didn’t take part in – has been spotty point guard play (there really is little depth there) and an over-reliance on three-point shooting.

I know Jermaine Anderson’s doing all he can, he’s got all kinds of skills but this is the relative big leagues of international basketball and sometimes you have to be better than your best.

What would not qualifying mean? Well, let’s deal with that when the issue arises but suffice it to say right now, it’d be a huge blow to a program that’s seeing solid development at the teen level but nothing at the senior level.

The fix? Well, it’s going to take some time to figure out exactly what’s needed to fix things; luckily we’ve got all week to try to figure that out.

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Travelogue time:

I can highly, highly recommend the peak-to-peak ride in Whistler; I’m not a big fan of scenery (I know, that must come as a shock to many) but that’s damn breath-taking and if you get a chance to do it, do it.

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Right, the Raptors.

When we last left ‘em …well, they had Banks for Matt Carroll being discussed and it’s cooled at the moment, or so I’m hearing. But I have to admit, it hasn’t been a week of hard work and the couple of brief conversations I’ve had with sources really haven’t yielded anything of substance.

Other than that, it’s eerily quiet, which I guess is to be expected given the flurry of activity over July and early August.

Most of the players and coaches will start wandering back into town at the beginning of next week to get settled and have some of those “informal” workouts that go on in the couple of weeks leading up to training camp. Some might not get here ‘til about the 21st, which is fine with everyone, as long as they show up in shape.

Generally, it’s the kids who get in early to get used to the city, the gym, the work regimen.

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So, we see two ball parks on the trip and while the game at Safeco Field was way better, the atmosphere at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver was exceptional and makes one long for a nice Double A or Triple A team in our neighbourhood.

And I can now say I’ve seen the Eugene Emeralds play baseball.

And I can now say I’ve seen two catchers’ interference calls in the same game, something not many of you can say.

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Hey, my man Phil Jasner catches up with an old Raptor, Mike Bradley, in this little note.

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Travelogue, still:

Any vampire fans out there?

Well, part of the reason for the excursion out west was so Super Son and Super Wife could go visit this place, Forks, in Washington and see if they could see any blood-sucking humanoids or whatever comes out of those Twilight books.

Me? I’m the chauffeur and I can tell you this: To get to Forks, you go about five kilometres past the end of the earth, turn right, and you’re almost there.

I swear, the next series of books that Super Son really gets into better be set in Madrid or Rome or somewhere, you know, civilized.

Nice t-shirts, though.

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Oh, if you can find a glass of Scuttlebutt’s Anthony’s Pale Ale or Ugly Ale or Phillip’s Blue Buck Ale, go ahead and order one, they’re quite tasty.

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Travelogue, more (bored yet?):

Do you know if you ride a bike for a couple of hours around and through Vancouver’s Stanley Park after living a relatively slothful life for a few weeks your legs and knees hurt?

But you do see some cool things, like the family of three raccoons wrestling on the side of the bike path. And if you’re smart, you let them wrestle without trying to break up the fracas.

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Okay, guess that’s it for now; gotta get ready to pack and figure out what else there is to report for the next couple of days while I’m trying to get over jet lag.

See ya.