How the CEBL powered Canada’s Olympic men’s team by connecting the country’s basketball ecosystem

In the fourth quarter of the Canadian men’s basketball team’s exhibition against the U.S. in Las Vegas, Phil Scrubb passed the ball to brother Thomas in the corner.

Suddenly, Thomas Scrubb — the lifelong basketball journeyman from Richmond, B.C. — found himself one-on-one against LeBron James. 

Scrubb did not hesitate. He took a hard dribble left, got a step on LeBron as he sprinted toward the hoop, and finished with a lefty hook shot.

“To watch Tommy score against LeBron or Phil work his magic on the court against some of the best players in the world, knowing that these guys have participated in the CEBL for several, several years is a great moment,” league commissioner Mike Morreale said.

“I'm very proud of what they've been able to accomplish and the fact that we've been able to help expose those accomplishments.”

Combined, the Scrubbs and Trae Bell-Haynes have played 69 games in the CEBL — a league that in its sixth season is still growing.

The Scrubb brothers did not make the final Olympic roster, but they will still travel to Paris, along with Bell-Haynes, as alternates for the Canadian team.

It’s an opportunity that may not have presented itself if the trio was never handed the opportunity to showcase each of themselves on home soil.

“We've created a bit of a system and a program that supports each other,” Morreale said. “I've always talked about the ecosystem. And in this case, we've really come together as a basketball ecosystem, specifically between the CEBL and Canada Basketball.”

Steve Konchalski, who was an assistant coach as Team Canada qualified for the Olympics in 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1988, is now a senior adviser with the Calgary Surge.

Canada’s Coach K, as Konchalski is known, described the CEBL as a “connecting point” for the Canadian basketball community.

“Maybe it is because Canada is a hockey country, will always be known as a hockey country. And so the basketball community has always stuck together and followed each other's progress and supported each other's progress as people have played — whether it's overseas and G league, whatever it is — their careers well past university,” Konchalski said.

Now, the CEBL is a gathering point specifically placed during the summer when players are done with their professional seasons abroad.

Konchalski said he bumped into Vancouver Bandits forward Duane Notice, the Toronto native, ahead of a game recently.

“I coached Duane Notice when I worked as a mentor coach with Roy Rana [the Canadian who is now the Egyptian men’s coach] back in 2010,” Konchalski said. “On that same team was [Andrew] Wiggins, on that same team was Anthony Bennett — players that became number one draft picks.”

Joe Raso, the CEBL’s senior director of basketball operations, worked as an assistant coach under Konchalski when the latter took over in 1994.

He said the league is an important pathway to the national team.

“We were the missing link, I think, in Canada Basketball's master plan. We needed a professional league in Canada. And the CEBL now is that,” Raso said.

On opening night of the 2024 season, the CEBL boasted 22 players who had suited up for the Canadian national team — mostly in qualifying windows during the NBA season.

Meanwhile, Bell-Haynes and Kyle Alexander, another ex-Shooting star, were both on the World Cup team that clinched Canada’s Olympic qualification last year and won bronze. Both players even played important minutes off the bench.

“I think that's really what the CEBL has provided, are those building blocks to ensure that the best talent is ready and available at all times to do things on behalf of the country,” Morreale said.

And while a trio of ex-CEBL players are headed to Paris, a current CEBL referee — MP Malo — is one of two Canadians set to officiate the Olympic basketball tournament.

“That's part of the partnership that people don't realize exists,” Raso said. “Until the CEBL, it was hard for Canadian officials to get great FIBA assignments — and forget about getting a gold medal game. But since the CEBL came, we've had Canadian officials work gold medal games and world championships and the Olympics.”

Meanwhile, the CEBL’s contributions to Canada Basketball won’t end in Paris. 

Konchalski said that even more than a medal, he’d like to see the men’s program continually reach the Olympics and contend for podiums. Whether it results in medals is up to the basketball gods.

“It ain't that easy. You have to have a whole bunch of things going your way. Look at Kawhi — to win the championship that the Raptors won, two things happened. One was Kawhi’s shot, it bounced four times and went in. They got the bounces. The other was thing that that happened was, it’s unfortunate, with Golden State, was their injury situation,” Konchalski said.

To that end, the CEBL can continue to help promote Canadian basketball talent – both by giving university graduates a place to continue playing, and by providing live showcases of the sport to kids across the country.

Morreale, an ex-CFL player, said that’s how he first discovered football.

“If the national team comes home with any sort of medal it’ll do what the Raptors championship in 2019 did, and that is start another 30-year run of kids wanting to play basketball,” Morreale said. 

“So when we look at the developing talent pool beneath the CEBL, the young teams, it's incredible what's coming. And that will only go to filter through our league and filter into national programs and filter onto the world stage.”