A10-year veteran with Canada's national men's basketball team, Levon Kendall is in a position he hasn't been in many times before: at the centre of the country's attention.
At the team's first practice two weeks ago in Toronto, the 29-year-old six-foot-10 forward and graduate of Kitsilano secondary was cracking jokes with a fellow veteran. "There was more media than I'd ever seen at a national team practice," he said. "I was joking... They probably came out to see us."
Kendall said training camp had new enthusiasm and a heightened atmosphere compared to previous years, not least because expectations across the country are high, and the Vancouverite felt right at home. Young Canadian players like No. 1 NBA draft pick Anthony Bennett, No. 13 pick Kelly Olynyk and projected No. 1 Andrew Wiggins are garnering unprecedented accolades for Canadian hoops. Not since twotime Steve Nash twice won NBA MVP honours has the country known this kind of pride on the basketball court. Nash has also returned to wear the Maple Leaf and herald what he called a "Golden Age of Canadian basketball."
"It's definitely a different environment with Steve Nash around and Jay Triano back, and also the young draft guys all in the mix," said Kendall. "There is a lot of history being made in Canadian hoops. We have the opportunity to be a part of something special."
Triano returns as head coach and Nash steps up as general manager. Their primary goal is the 2014 basketball World Cup, hosted next year in Madrid and Barcelona. The road to Spain begins this week when Canada travels to Venezuela for the FIBA Americas tournament, which begins Aug. 30.
At a Toronto press conference two weeks ago when he announced the 18 players invited to training camp, Nash said, "Obviously, we're desperate to qualify but we may not. We have to stick to the plan and the plan is to develop our players, form a chemistry, give them experience at the international level and the best way to do that is to qualify and give them another experience next summer."
The 2016 Rio Summer Games are also on the radar but World Cup qualifying begins immediately and presents a challenge as much as an opportunity, said Kendall.
"If we're able to qualify for that, it's going to be a really big building block for us to be able to get to the Olympics and be able to get some experience to see what it's like against some of the European countries and some of the strong countries in the Americas."
Practice included "basic stuff" like offensive and defensive systems but also a new mindset, said Kendall. "Because this is the fist time in a couple of years since Jay has coached, there's a little bit of a different philosophy. We're going to try to use out athleticism, that's going to be one of our big points.
We're quick at every position, we've got athletes and were going to really try to play an up-tempo defence and hopefully that translates into easy offence: get it and run."
The squad includes NBA talent and veterans, like Kendall and Carl English and Andy Rautins with seasoned international experience. World basketball follows a slightly different rulebook than the NBA, meaning athletes with European and Latin American competition under their belts bring essential value to the team. Kendall plays professionally in Spain as the starting centre for Blusens Monbus.
In their first two exhibition games against Jamaica this weekend at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in Toronto, the Canadians swept the visitors in two games.
Kendall has over 110 appearances with the national team and is confident of his role on the roster.
"I still feel totally comfortable and we still have the same core group of guys," he told the Courier from training camp before meeting Jamaica. "There's a handful of us who have been here for a number of years and none of that's changed. I've also known Jay since I was about 17. It feels like home for me."
Kendall won two consecutive provincial high school championships in 2001 and '02 under Kitsilano Blue Demons head coach Simon Dykstra, who now runs the junior boys program at Churchill. From Vancouver, Kendall played for the NCAA Div. 1 University of Pittsburgh where, in his senior year, he averaged 26 points and shot 74 per cent from the line.
