Michael Shambo
Staff Writer
Don’t look now, but USA’s neighbors to the north are sending in an influx of talent to the National Basketball Association. In the last five years alone, there have been seven Canadian players drafted into the NBA including five first-rounders as well as last year’s first overall pick, Anthony Bennett.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. For the upcoming 2014 draft, there could potentially be eight players drafted from Canada. This one year could hypothetically surpass the previous five combined for Canadian born players.
It’s important to note that there are only two rounds in the NBA draft and 30 teams. So if 8 Canadians are drafted from the 60 player pool, that would constitute a whopping 13% of players drafted. That’s pretty darn impressive for a country known specifically for churning out nothing but hockey players.
The three guarantee players that will be drafted (and for that matter highly drafted) will be Andrew Wiggins (Kansas), Nik Stauskas (Michigan), and Tyler Ennis (Syracuse). It’s likely that Wiggins will be drafted first overall, making it back-to-back years that a Canadian would hold that title.
The rest of the 2014 Canadian rookie class could consist of Jordan Bachynski, Dwight Powell, Sim Bhullar, Khem Birch, and Melvin Ejim. Birch and Ejim are projected to be late second-rounders so they’re facing the most difficult task of finding their way onto an NBA team, but the chances are reasonably high we’ll see all eight players getting their name called in New York.
What do you guys think? Are you ready for the Canadian invasion in the NBA?
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