NBA Draft night makes strong statement – the Canadians are coming!

The NBA Champions and 2019 NBA Draft reflect a new era where basketball may have usurped hockey and the NHL as the most popular sport in Canada.

Pre Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies era if you grew up in Canada odds are your Saturday nights were spent in front of a TV watching Hockey Night in Canada. It’s what most boys and more recently young females played growing up.

I was a bit of a rebel so my time was spent playing soccer, volleyball, basketball, tennis and running or other track events. I even played football with my male friends and (sorry about that shoulder Stephen S, it’s not how hard you hit – but where you tackle I guess!). It’s not that I was averse to hockey I just happened to perform better at sports that didn’t include putting blades on my feet.

My point is, for a great deal of my life, for me and everyone I know, hockey was more like a religion than a sport. But, for as much as I enjoyed watching the game, I grew disenchanted by ticket prices for Maple Leaf games. As a young lady, I was priced out of being able to afford to attend. The ones I did attend seemingly were predominantly filled with business people, not necessarily the rabid fans I associated with “fandom”. And so it was when the Raptors got their franchise that I finally had the opportunity to attend several games a season and I became an NBA superfan.

In those early days, the Raptors weren’t very good, but the atmosphere at games was electric. Each season, even in the lean years the arena was often full to the brim. No doubt a factor of the game appealing to families, tickets being less cost prohibitive and just an overall sense of being amongst a more reflective sample of the community I was a part of.

While the Raptors took 24 years to reach the pinnacle of their sport the process to get there included many more losing seasons than playoff berths. In fact, if you dissect the Raptors history in its entirety it’s easy to isolate on the three positive segments of the franchise. Naturally, those segments also can be reflected in the rise of popularity not just of the team in Canada but of young males and females who grew up choosing to play basketball instead of hockey.

The first was the Vince Carter era. Yep, the same guy, who at 42 will become the oldest player in the NBA with a career spanning over 22 years after next season. His high flying dunks and athleticism sparked our interest and finally gave us a Raptors team that hinted at becoming more than an annual lottery squad. The apex of the VC era came during the slam dunk competition and still stands arguably as the greatest performance ever in the event. When he was dealt for a bag of peanuts and an unwilling to sign Alonzo Mourning it signaled the end of happy times in Canada for years to come.

Sure, there was the Chris Bosh years, but he never was meant to lead a franchise as was proven when he effectively filled the role as the third option in Miami. And, there were other moments with teams who competed hard and fans who blindly supported them knowing we just didn’t have enough to rise into the upper echelon.

I have this conversation frequently with OKC Thunder fans because for all intents and purposes we’ve been spoiled by the team’s success and wonderful list of players who’ve graced the Thunder years. From the start, there was Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and Serge Ibaka.  I’m still in denial over how that squad couldn’t remain intact to carve out years of titles.

In the 11 years of the Thunder franchise, OKC has been to the playoffs in all but two seasons. In contrast, the Raptors 24 years is earmarked by that many trips total including the current six consecutive years they are currently in. Every franchise has a culture and the Thunder’s has invariably always included winning.

But, for Canada and our lone team that was nowhere near the case. In the most recent era we’ve been known as a “good in-season team” and the chokers of the playoffs. That continuing narrative became so prescient Canadians almost developed the expectation of failing. But, this year signaled a fresh perspective and a new mindset. Recalling “the shot” which vaulted the Raptors into the Eastern Conference Finals (only their second in history) I can’t even find the words to express what that moment meant.

My entire apartment building shook as clearly many of my neighbors were also watching. I sat with the BBoyz in my apartment listening to loud screams, people jumping up and down and cheers from outside as people flooded onto the down town streets. Personally, my initial response was a loud cheer followed by minutes of sitting in stunned silence wondering if what I’d just witnessed was real. And then, suddenly, inexplicably I began to cry. To this day, I can’t explain why – it just happened – the pure joy of the moment and what felt like years of wishes and dreams finally coming to a head.

Everything else since then has been gravy. Celebrations after Game 6 in the 6ix, winning the title, and how Canada rose up to embrace this team. But, for as amazing as the ride has been that Kawhi Leonard shot in Game 7 still is the one I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. Certainly, there were more poignant moments, especially since the Raptors won the title, but short of Draymond Green not getting his fingertips on Kyle Lowry’s shot at the end of Game 5 and that ball falling in I doubt anything could’ve compared to ‘the shot’ – or that anything the Raptors will ever do again can equal that moment (at least for me).

I digressed a bit to make my point here. First, let me state I’m a basketball fan – first and foremost. I follow the entire league, players from all teams and have my guilty pleasures. I’m a bit of an oddity because the Toronto Raptors are my home team and subsequently I guess they could be dubbed as my favorite. But, from the minute Russell Westbrook was drafted to the Thunder they became my Western team. I loved his obvious passion and the fact he played every possession of every game like it was the final 10 seconds of Game 7 in the playoffs.

I’m also drawn to teams who are experiencing new found success. This season my NBA League Pass guilty pleasures included the Brooklyn Nets, Sacramento Kings, Denver Nuggets and something I thought I’d never say (particularly because of how much I abhorred the “Lob City” era) LA Clippers. Perhaps it’s that natural desire to witness the underdog win or breakthrough, I’m not sure, but it’s always been my M.O. Likewise, I have a penchant for scrappy, intelligent guys who do the hard work and overcome barriers they are told won’t be possible. Hence, my abject affection for Westbrook, Kyle Lowry, and players their ilk.

The other common denominator is how closely I follow the careers of all the Canadian NBA players. Probably because of the years of debates I had with my male buddies – the BBoyz crew about why the NBA was more exciting than the NHL. The BBoyz crew is my affectionate term for my buddies who often congregate to either attend or watch games and debate about the NBA.

So, last night with the NBA Draft in full effect I was keenly interested in where several of these Canadian players would be selected.

In all, six Canadians were drafted on Thursday ranging from the third pick to the 54th pick and four were taken in the first round. They were:

• RJ Barrett – 3rd pick by Knicks
• Nickeil Alexander-Walker – 17th pick by Pelicans
• Brandon Clarke – 23rd pick by Grizzlies
• Mfiondu Kabengele – 27th pick by Clippers
• Ignas Brazdeikis – 47th pick by Kings
• Marial Shyok – 54th pick by 76ers

That’s ten percent of the draft for those who enjoy to stat count. And, the OKC Thunder added Luguentz Dort post draft to a two-way contract.

More from Thunderous Intentions

• Stealing one player from every Southwest Division team for the OKC Thunder
• Should the OKC Thunder chase after a disgruntled hometown hero?
• 3 OKC Thunder players who can step up in Aleksej Pokusevski’s absence
• Aleksej Pokusevski sidelined approximately 6 weeks with ankle injury
• Damian Lillard does not fit with the OKC Thunder

For someone who spent their early NBA loving years having to convince my friends why it was time to shift their attention to the sport, the fact Canada is the second largest represented country in the Association is amazing.

A good friend told me the other day that each day as he would leave and return from work he would see his neighbors kid outside taking slapshots into an empty net. Somewhere in the middle of the Raptors playoff run, he noticed the youngster outside dribbling a ball and throwing it into a makeshift basket he’d created. By the time the Raptors were emersed in the finals, he came home one night to see the youngster now shooting hoops into a freshly installed net.

Just like I can isolate the uprise of Canadian talent in the NBA to kids who grew up the Vince Carter era or Steve Nash MVP era no doubt 10 to 15 years from now the Raptors championship will be reflected by another surge of Canadian talent as they await their names being called at the draft.

I’m not saying don’t enjoy other sports or have different sports as your favorites. Rather, I’m simply expressing how wonderful it is to see the uprise of basketball in Canada which at this point isn’t considered the exception anymore. Basketball is here to stay, and nothing – – nothing could make me happier.