Coaches who can outline plays on a black board are a dime a dozen. The coaches who win are the ones who can motivate their players — Vince Lombardi

We may be a month away from NBA action but basketball fans are getting a bonus this year. Across the pond, the FIBA World Championships are underway in Turkey bringing together basketball talent from around the globe. While teams like USA have left some of their star power at home, most participating countries have come fully loaded.

The Canadian team with a fresh new sponsorship deal thanks to Bell Canada made their first appearance in 8 years under coach Leo Rautins. They played well leading up to the tournament and went in with hopes to at the least get through the preliminary round. Those hopes were squashed in a hurry as the team blew leads in the first 3 games and then completely deflated to end 0-5. They could have easily won the first 3, they should have. Instead, they are packing their bags and heading home.

What went wrong though? Who is to blame for this embarrassment?

The first mistake was when Basketball Canada severed ties with former coach Jay Triano and brought on ex-player Leo Rautins to try his hand at coaching. While Leo may have been a good player in his time, he has never coached at any level. There is more to coaching than knowing the game. A coach needs to be able to motivate his players, connect with them and have a plan. Rautins didn’t display any of these attributes in the 5 games I watched, and even though he was working with marginal talents, it seems they were playing on their own. The substitutions were horrible, play calling that resembled that of a high school team and no sign of coach in the final minutes of the game when the team really needed him the most.

Michael Grange of the National Post doesn’t think all the blame should go on the inexperienced coach (link). I agree with some of his arguments but the guys in red and while played their hearts out without having a real coach to steer them in a winning direction. Its a shame that while Leo was strutting the sidelines for Canada the best Canadian coach, Jay Triano, is calling plays for basketball superpower Team USA — blame it on the politics.

Coach Rautins began this coaching stint a couple of years back and very quickly lost one of Canada’s better players, Samuel Dalambert. The two butted heads which led to Dalambert leaving the National team with no intent to return if Leo was on the sidelines. Coach also tried to woo Steve Nash to play for the National team but his allegiance lies with Jay Triano and Nash was not too happy when Basketball Canada made the coaching change. Before the tournament, Matt Bonner had applied for expedited Canadian status but was rejected. All that left Leo with Joel Anthony as his best NBA player along with his son Andy who got injured and was unable to contribute.

All is not lost though, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel — call it, THE FUTURE. With names like Myck Kabongo, Cory Joseph, Tristan Thompson coming up, there is hope again that the next crop will take Canada Basketball to the next level… hopefully under a new coach!

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