Title: R.J. Barrett and Canada Are Getting Ready to Flex on the Basketball World
Date: July 5, 2018
Original Source: Vice
Synopsis: In my latest for Vice, I wrote about Canada Basketball’s strange lack of international success and why the talent pool is now too undeniable for it to continue.
R.J. Barrett was not trying to flex. Canada had just blown out the Dominican Republic in Toronto on Friday, avenging their only loss so far in FIBA qualifiers, and the 18-year-old phenom featured prominently as the team’s starting shooting guard. All through training camp leading up to this game, Barrett had been the story, a teenager playing with the senior men’s team and the new face of Canadian basketball.
Asked about the importance of getting a win in what was, before the new qualifying procedure, a rare home game, Barrett’s response came with not a boast or a threat or a promise, but something closer to a verifiable fact.
“It’s important. We had lost a couple months ago and came back,” he said. “Canada Basketball is on the rise.”
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 