BURNABY — Kelly Olynyk can see the day coming when a player from Canada’s top university basketball league finds regular employment in the NBA.
“It’s going to be big when it happens, and I think it’s going to happen sooner rather than later,” the Kamloops native and Boston Celtics star said Wednesday after he was introduced as an official ambassador for the 2016 Canadian Interuniversity Sport Final 8 men’s national basketball championships, being hosted by the UBC Thunderbirds March 17-20 in Vancouver.
Of course Olynyk, who starred as a high schooler for the South Kamloops Titans, and later did the same with the NCAA’s Gonzaga Bulldogs on his way to the NBA, never played in the CIS.
Yet don’t think for a second that he is taking lightly his role in promoting the brand of hoops which was directly responsible for him wanting to play the game.
“I grew up watching the CIS,” said Olynyk, whose dad Ken coached the University of Toronto Varsity Blues men’s team when Kelly was still a child. “I never watched the NCAA growing up. Like, zero. I used to watch game film with my dad. So being from Kamloops and from Toronto, CIS has a special place in my heart.”
As a rising NBA star, as a member of Canada’s national team, and as a proud supporter of both high school and university basketball in this province, Olynyk is hopeful that the CIS will continue to remain a vibrant and thriving delivery system for basketball in this country, one which will continue to funnel both its top coaches and players towards national team programs and top pro leagues, including one day, the NBA.
“It’s going to be tough but I think there is going to be an opportunity,” continued Olynyk of a CIS player breaking through the barriers and stepping on the floor for an NBA regular-season game. “Phil Scrubb (Vancouver College, Carleton) is probably the closest right now. He got to play (with Toronto and Memphis) in the NBA Summer League. If you play well there, you can get a camp invite, and if that happens, then anything can happen.”
(See box below for the history of CIS players who briefly appeared in the NBA)
As Olynyk sees it, that player might not be one who comes out of high school with a ton of press clippings, but one who maximizes the CIS’ five-year eligibility window in terms of his player development.
“I think it’s going to be someone who is a late developer and wasn’t touted coming out of high school,” he said. “They might go to a school like UBC, maybe don’t play their first couple of years, but they mature and the game slows down for them. Everyone might say ‘Why didn’t they go (NCAA)?’ But five years is a long time. You can get significantly better and you can change your body significantly in five years. Maybe that will be what it takes.”
Set to fly out for the second half of the NBA season, Olynyk has spent the past few days on something of a trip down memory lane, beginning with All-Star Weekend in Toronto.
“Being born there, walking those streets as a little kid and then seeing the excitement and enthusiasm that revolves around All-Star Weekend, with the best cumulative talent in the world all in the same place, in your own hometown? That was pretty unbelievable.”
So was flying back to his adopted home of Kamloops, where he headed out to watch his old high school team take on rival Valleyview in an Okanagan Triple A contest on Tuesday.
“It brought back a lot of memories,” said Olynyk, who visited with his old high school coach Del Komarniski. “I went in and I was able to talk to the guys and they were excited to see me back. The gym was packed and to see it flourishing was special.”
So too, of course, is the legacy Olynyk left on the B.C. high school game before he embarked on his journey to the NBA.
His Titans did not win the B.C. title back in his senior year of 2009, but Olynyk was still picked the tournament MVP, and he is the only player in tournament history to lead the field in scoring (36.5 ppg), rebounds (15.5 rpg) and assists (7.2 apg).
The best part about Wednesday?
Like Steve Nash before him, Kelly Olynyk is happy to step forward and promote everything that is great about B.C.’s proud basketball community.
CIS TO NBA
Canada has not had an athlete who played his entire university basketball career in Canada and then was drafted and played regular-season games in the NBA.
However the Ottawa Citizen’s Wayne Kondro, the dean of Canadian university basketball writers, points out two who passed through our nation’s collegiate ranks on their way to brief NBA careers.
Hank Biasatti began his career stateside at Long Island, transferred to Windsor (formerly Assumption College), then averaged one point per game over a six-game career with the NBA’s Toronto Huskies in 1946-47.
Jim Zoet spent his first three seasons in the U.S. at Kent State then transferred to Lakehead in Thunder Bay in 1977-78. He eventually signed as a free agent with the Detroit Pistons in 1982-83, averaging 0.3 ppg and 1.1 rpg over a seven-game career.
A number of CIS players and NAIA star Jay Triano of Simon Fraser, were drafted by NBA teams but none appeared in regular-season games.
