[UPDATE} After training with Team Canada Jamal Murray had to concede that he couldn’t make it to the FIBA WC on short notice. In the end Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his teammates didn’t need him to qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics, beating Spain to punch a ticket to the QF and tom Paris next year.

You can be forgiven watching Jamal Murray lead the Denver Nuggets to the NBA title and wondering, “Can he do the same for Canada’s perennial underachieving men’s basketball program?” In tandem with Nikola Djokic, Murray showed he has ascended to the top of the sport. The product of London, Ontario, he’s become the face of a program that flopped in 2019’s World Cup but last year put up an 11-1 record to qualify for the 2023 WC.

Where once it was Steve Nash and pray for a miracle, this roster is peppered with NBA stars. Looking at the Canadian roster heading into Group H of the 2023 FIBA World Cup in Indonesia later this month there is support for Murray as Canada looks for a signature performance on the world stage. Murray will share the back court with the supremely gifted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (OKC).

Others with NBA pedigrees who made the three-year commitment to Basketball Canada include Shai’s cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker (Minnesota), R.J. Barrett (NY Knicks), Kelly Olnyk (Utah), Oshaie Brisset (Boston), Dillon Brooks (Houston), Dwight Powell (Dallas), Cory Joseph (GS) and Zach Edey (Purdue). The mix of young talent with those who understand the international brand of basketball is promising.

The question is why so many other Canadian stars resist making the commitment to the national team. Golden State star Andrew Wiggins— who’s missing this tournament— has had an inconsistent history with the squad. Other NBA stars missing this time include Trey Lyles (Sacramento), Lu Dort (OKC), Chris Boucher (Toronto), Nik Stauskas (Minnesota) ) and Khem Birch (Toronto). There are many reasons why they pass up the chance to represent their country. Injuries, free agency, pressure from NBA team management or having to sit behind a star like Murray could be a factor.

But Murray, who just finished a gruelling season in Denver, is proof that desire to play for Canada can overcome the fears that have derailed others. After a very short offseason, he’s ready to go when the group phase opens on August 25. Murray had missed the entire 2021–22 campaign while recovering from his ACL tear prior to the Nuggets triumph in June.

His teammates recognize the sacrifice. “It means a lot,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “He committed, stayed true to his word. It means a lot. Obviously he’s a super talented player, and he’s a great addition to the team.”

“That’s a huge sacrifice,” Dwight Powell adds. “Huge, huge honouring of the commitment and I think we all recognize that.”

Murray is also a great example to the pipeline of talent being developed in this country. Anyone who’s watched the NBA draft recently is anxious to see if young Canadian guns like Andrew Nembhard (Indiana), Bennedict Mathurin (Indiana) , Shaedon Sharpe (Portland) and Leonard Miller (Minnesota) will commit to Basketball Canada heading into the 2024 Olympics. Certainly the world is aware of the factory producing young ballers.

As we wrote in October of 2018 “While hockey still has a death grip on Canada’s No. 1 sport, basketball is growing in popularity. Among the factors are the economics of the game— it’s much less expensive than hockey for a family, the surge in new Canadian urban communities who have less tradition with hockey and, crucially, the risk factors of concussions that blight hockey, football and even soccer these days.

NBA scouts and NCAA head coaches now flock to Toronto’s Brampton suburb, hotbed for so many of the new stars, to look for the next superstar. Should the pipeline stay full, it would only be a matter of time till a star-laden Canadian team is playing against the Americans in the Olympic or World Cup Final.” Since then we’ve seen Montreal also emerge as a basketball hotbed with Mathurin and Dort as examples..

Coaching and Basketball Canada have also been impediments to attracting the best of the best. Jay Triano didn’t mesh with several young players in the past. Canada’s coach until recently was Nick Nurse, ex-coach of the Toronto Raptors. It was hoped his NBA title bonafides would help smooth egos of players and the trepidations of NBA managements that feared their stars would be hurt in the Canadian uniform.

But when he left this season to go to the Philadelphia 76ers the assignment has now fallen to Jordi Fernandez, who’s an associate head coach for the Sacramento Kings under Mike Brown. Will NBA veterans listen to him? Can he command respect in a league where reputations speak louder than words? And will Basketball Canada, often a dysfunctional body, smooth or hinder the path for the team playing a world away in Asia?

With the 2024 Paris Olympics on the horizon, qualifying should be the the least of their goals this month. Getting into the Top 5 would be a signal achievement. A medal? A dream more possible thanks to Murray.

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the fifth-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His prize-listed 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

Can Jamal Murray Do The Double-- NBA Champion & World Medalist?