OKC Thunder: Olympic dreams for Lu Dort, Team Canada put on hold

This past week, the four FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments took place with 23 National teams participating. The lone OKC Thunder participant was Canadian Luguentz Dort who made the 12 player roster cut.

Unlike RJ Barrett and Andrew Wiggins who grew up playing for the National team, this was the first time Dort had tried out. Raptors head coach Nick Nurse was at the helm for the second year running. In all eight NBA players made this year’s team and it was a veritable certainty Dort would be among them although he seemed less certain heading into training camp with his typical humility stating ‘he hoped to represent his country’.

Canada was favored to win their event even with many NBA talents unavailable. In retrospect, there were eight players who would’ve had a great shot of making the team and comprised the two assets the team was missing — 3-point shooting and front-court big men.

The trio of guards who would’ve been locks included OKC Thunder cornerstone Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (injury), Jamal Murray (injury), and Dillon Brooks (fatigue).  Arguably two of the five big men would also have made the team. That group included Oshae Brissett (fatigue), Kelly Olynyk, Chris Boucher, Khem Birch, or Tristan Thompson mostly out due to pending free agency.

OKC Thunder wing Lu Dort will have to wait four more years for Olympics

If you caught the games there was good reason for the team to be optimistic with Nurse coaching and a bevy of wing talents. Saturday, in the semi-final, the squad showcased precisely why this team would’ve offered excitement in Toyko as they erased a nine-point deficit in 1:18 to force overtime. Dort defended Tomas Satoransy who made the overtime game-winner on a hail Mary shot that he banked in.

Unfortunately, FIBA is a different style of play which allows teams to stand unimpeded in the paint (no 3-second counts), be more physical and refs can apply arbitrary fouls that leave you scratching your head. One such foul occurred on a play at the end of the fourth quarter which resulted in the Czech Republic getting four free throws and the ball. Two for a personal foul and two for an intentional foul (similar to a flagrant).

The irony of the latter is you could hear one official say – it’s just a common foul (and it was) but the other ref overruled him. Although the Canadians struggled from the perimeter and to rebound against the monster frontcourt of the Czech group that one foul cost the Canucks their shot at returning to the Olympics for the first time since 2000.

It leaves a bitter taste in many Canadian’s mouths because as my friend Keith Smith points out it denies fans from being able to see two teams made up primarily of NBA talents play each other in Toyko.

It’s also likely if the team had survived Saturday they would be headed to Tokyo as Greece was the Sunday opponent (who they’d already beat). In that event it’s likely Nurse could’ve cajoled one of the five aforementioned big men to join the team.

Although Team USA will be favored to win in Japan it’s never a guarantee and much of the reason why is European teams are extremely familiar with each other. International teams begin the process at a young age and grow up playing yearly for their national teams. European clubs value the FIBA World Championships the same way we in North America view the Olympics.

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It’s highly unusual for a player from Europe to turn down an invitation – as Nurse noted, Jonas Valanciunas couldn’t walk on the streets of Utena (Lithuania) if he ever declined to participate.

Despite not securing an Olympic berth, Dort’s experience was positive. He became the go-to defender for Nurse. Unfortunately, in the final match Nurse wasn’t able to utilize him as much as he wanted because of the size of their opponent.

Once Dwight Powell got into foul trouble the coach needed to go deeper into his bench to find bigs who could try to help on the boards which meant Trey Lyles, Andrew Nicholson, and even Anthony Bennett got minutes that likely would’ve been allocated to Dort.

Moving forward, four or five players stood out that should be locks on future teams as Canada endeavors to build the program with a consistent yearly roster. Dort will be among that group plus Barrett, Wiggins, Shai’s cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker and possibly Dwight Powell.

The hope is SGA, Murray, Brooks, and other NBA talents will join the quintet above and help to build the program to end the 20 plus year absence from the Olympics. Now that Dort has gotten a taste of international exposure and the FIBA game no doubt he’ll be keen to return.

As for this year, the four teams who secured the final spots in Tokyo are the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovenia, and Italy. With Canada’s exit and Aleksej Pokusevski electing to work on his game instead of playing for Serbia that means the only OKC Thunder player who’ll be participating at the Olympics is Gabriel Deck on the Argentian team.