Has Canada Fixed Their Problems from Years Past?

 It's been six years since Canada fell to France at the last chance tournament for the 2016 Olympics. Since, FIBA has rebranded everything and has almost made the Olympic Tournament insignificant. They main focus is intended to be the World Cup which happens in a four year cycle. 

How did we get here? Massive lack of commitment from top players around the world forced this change. The system that mirrors FIFA's international break is intended to end tournaments where teams were playing eight games in eleven days. Instead, FIBA designates three or four weeks in a year where teams will play two games a week. Games are played in each country which briskly adds to the travel. 

Has it worked? The short answer is yes however we haven't seen increased commitment from the countries top players. Canada only had three NBA players last week when they capped off a 6-0 Semi Final stage with a 113-67 win over the Virgin Islands. The NBA doesn't release their players for the November and February windows so that handcuffs many teams and gives other teams an unfair
advantage. 

Some teams have 3-5 NBA players and a big drop off after that and therefore can't field as strong as a team as they would like. In contrast, other teams have no NBA players and can have their A team. 

Canada is fortunate that the quality that they have produced has also translated into the European leagues as well so we wouldn't have seen a drop off in production as we might have seen 15 years ago. Along with the likes of Puerto Rico, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico all don't have access to NBA players also for most of qualifying. Canada has benefited from this changed but is hindered once we get to the World Cup as the NBA players that Canada has don't have experience playing together. Canada is a confederation best 18-2 since the format was changed. 

Canada currently since 18th in the FIBA rankings and is poised for a better draw next summer in Japan. This is where things get interesting. Russia at 14th is banned for obvious reasons, Poland shockingly got eliminated from Euro Qualifiers and Serbia, Slovenia and Czech Republic are on the verge of not qualifying. 

Here is the pots from four years ago and Canada got hijacked a Pot 5 spot for I'm not sure why.

As you can see below, Canada should have been in Pot five instead of Iran. This would have likely given Canada a group of Spain, Turkey, Canada and Japan insted of their gauntlet that they went through in 2019. 

So the key question becomes, will Canada get hijacked into pot 6 again next spring? Canada is close to a Top 16 ranking as they only trail Venezuela and Brazil by just a few points. 

Just something to keep an eye on in the next nine months.   

Groups A, C, E, and G

Groups B, D, F, and H

Pot 1	Pot 4	Pot 5	Pot 8
China (19) (host)(Group A) United States (1) (Group E)  Spain (2)  France (3)	Puerto Rico (16)  Turkey (17)  Dominican Rep. (18)  Venezuela (20)	Germany (22)  Czech Republic (24)  Poland (25)  Iran (27)	Japan (48)  Jordan (49)  Tunisia (51)  Ivory Coast (64)
Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 6	Pot 7
Serbia (4)  Argentina (5)  Lithuania (6)  Greece (8)	Russia (10)  Australia (11)  Brazil (12)  Italy (13)	Canada (23)  Montenegro (28)  Philippines (31)  South Korea (32)	Nigeria (33)  Senegal (37)  New Zealand (38)  Angola (39)