Canada Basketball closing in on new men’s, women’s coaches

Canada Basketball has got their man and soon their woman.

The governing body for basketball in the country is expected to announce their new hire for the men’s programs as soon as Thursday morning and is closing on their preferred women’s candidate, Sportsnet has learned.

On the men’s side it will fall to Gordon Herbert to lead Canada’s push for its first Olympic medal in basketball since 1936. The women’s side remains under wraps for the moment, but negotiations are close to being finalized, with a candidate that combines NCAA, international and WNBA experience to the role, per sources.

Herbert is a familiar face who checks the most important boxes for men’s program general manager Rowan Barrett, who said in the midst of the search for former head coach Jordi Fernandez’s replacement that “We believe our team will be ready to go for the podium in the LA 2028 Olympic Games.”

“We are first looking for coaches that have experience winning medals at the World Cup or the Olympics,” Barrett added when speaking last month. “And there (has) been interest (from) candidates from all over the world.”

Herbert was considered the favourite for the men’s job from the minute Fernandez stepped down.

The former Canadian Olympic team player (in 1984) has had a long and successful coaching career in Europe and is currently head coach for EuroLeague club Bayern Munich. Herbert was the head coach for the German national team when it won bronze at EuroBasket in 2022 and gold at the 2023 World Cup before finishing fourth at the Olympics in Paris. He was with Canada during World Cup qualifying prior to Nick Nurse being hired in 2019.

“What he did very well (for Germany) was make the main guys the main guys, and the other people — who are probably still more important than the big guys — got to do their role to impact winning,” said German team captain and Detroit Pistons guard Dennis Schroder. “That was the biggest thing he did, making sure everybody in the room knew their roles and everybody knew what they had to do to win a basketball game.”

The Canadian men’s team is coming off its most successful quadrennial in program history, having earned a bronze medal under Fernandez at the 2023 FIBA World Cup of Basketball and being awarded a fifth-place finish at the 2024 Olympics in France after going undefeated in pool play before losing to host France in the quarterfinals.

The core of that team should still be in their prime for the 2026 FIBA World Cup and the Olympics in Los Angeles, led by presumed NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Toronto Raptors standout RJ Barrett, OKC’s Lu Dort, Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard, Rockets wing Dillon Brooks and Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray among the potential returnees. Canada’s group of NBA bigs — national team stalwarts Kelly Olynyk, Dwight Powell and Khem Birch in particular — will be in their late 30s by then, but Canada should be able to rely on impressive Memphis Grizzlies rookie Zach Edey to anchor the paint by that stage.

The expectation on the men’s side is to hold a senior team training camp in August in advance of the FIBA AmeriCup, which runs Aug. 22-31 in Nicaragua. And while the core members of the men’s Olympic team won’t be playing this summer, the hope is that they will spend a couple of days in camp to gain some familiarity with Herbert ahead of the 2027 World Cup in Qatar.

The plan for the AmeriCup team is to include — ideally — a mix of younger national team prospects from the NBA ranks, and the European pros most likely to make up the core of the World Cup winter qualifying window teams in 2026. It’s unlikely Herbert will be coaching in Nicaragua in August but is expected to participate as a ‘systems director’ as the men set their foundation for the 2027 World Cup and the Olympics in 2028.

There is a different challenge on the women’s side as the team likely completes the transition from the veteran-laden group that finished fourth at the 2022 World Cup but went winless as they tried to integrate veterans and newer faces under former head coach Victor Lapena. It marked the fourth consecutive time the women failed to advance out of pool play at the Olympics.

The next women’s global competition is the World Cup in Germany in 2026, which puts more emphasis on the upcoming summer. The plan is to have a training camp in Toronto in June with a new staff in place in preparation for the Women’s FIBA AmeriCup in Chile, which runs from June 28 to July 6. The top six teams in that event will advance to one of four World Cup qualifying tournaments in February of 2026.