TOM's Talks | Alex Rucker

athlete care and the coaching staff. Rutcker, who grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, has a diverse background, one rooted in education on many levels. This episode of Tom's Talks gives us insight into the seventy Sixers front office as we hear from Alex Rutcker. Hello, and welcome to another edition of Tom's Talks, and we're joined by a member of the seventy Sixers front office. Alex Rutcker is the seventy Sixers executive bright vice President of Basketball Operations. And Alex,

thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing today? Doing fantastic? Tom Basketball's back yesterday, So there's some joy in my life again. But no, thank you, thank you for having me. It's an honor. You just celebrated a birthday. It got lost in the shuffle a little bit with Ben simmons birthday, but a belated birthday wish, thanks sir. A lot of six Ers birthdays of late with Tobias Harris and Mike Scott and Alec Birch, herself and Ben Simmons are all celebrating together down there in

the bubble. That was nice to see. Yeah, No, it's been great. So as we speak, the scrimmages just started, and I gotta tell you it looked fantastic. I mean, you know, understatement, but the league is pulling this off. They've done an incredible job, the NBA and player safety staff safety creating the bubble and now scrimmages and soon games. I thought it was just fantastic to watch that initial

day of scrimmages. Yeah, I agreed. No, I think there's there's definitely been avoid in my life for the last few months as we've kind of navigated this covid uh and you know, having basketball back on our TV screens, you know, back on the radio. I think it's it's an important part of kind of scidal fabric, something that brings us together. And I'm so happy to be you know, watching basketball, seeing clips on Twitter. You know, it's just

it's fantastic. Well, you bring me to a point that maybe I was going to bring up later, But you love game day. My image of you is walking in coat. You grew up in Canada. It's twenty five degrees, you have no coat, but it's game day and that is your You just love game day. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean it's you know, my father, you know, when I was young, kind of gave me the advice. I think a lot of people will get. It's, you know, find something you love and find a way to get people to pay

you to do it. Um, you know, and I love love, love basketball, and so uh, I think it's it's really easy in the in this life working for a team, to get caught up in the grind and the stress and all that. But if you don't love the actual thing, if you don't love watching practice and love watching games,

I love watching scrimmages. I just like it's I don't know why you would choose to do it, right, but yeah, I know the second that you know you get to the arena, and then there's the people and then the vibe and everything else. It's just it's so kind of

fulfilling and rewarding for me. Couldn't agree more. Hopefully we'll have that in the weeks and months to come, and we're going to get into that a little bit because you had a session with a San Francisco lawyer many years ago that said, it sounds like you really love basketball. You probably should go into that. But we'll talk about that in a moment, because you have a great background, very intriguing to me and certainly in the education realm.

But let's talk a little bit about the seventy six ers in the bubble. Many of the staff members are still back with you in Philadelphia at the training facility. You can only bring a party that number thirty seven and obviously fifteen and those are players. But what do you think about as you get read as a sixer's take on the Grizzlies and their scrimmage Folk City and I like that, and eventually that first seeding game against

the Indiana Pacers. Yeah, So, I mean, our our focus for the last three four weeks and as you said yesterday that the scrimmages yesterday were it was. I felt a really high level of basketball for being day one after a multi month layoff, certainly higher than you would expect to see in the normal course kind of after

the offseason. And I think our focus organizational he has very much been on delivering healthy, in shape players, with emphasis on the healthy obviously given what's going on in the world, and so you know, Elton's focus and directive and what we have all been focused on the staff has been that, right, let's let's do everything we can

to keep our players safe. And a lot of times that's involved, you know, putting the brakes on things, being more slow and more deliberate, more safety and costs oriented. But so far, you know, knock on wood, our team has been looking great in craining and kind of this abbreviator training camp leading into scrimmages. So yeah, I can't wait to see what they look like tomorrow. It should be really good. So let's talk about Elton brand He's

the general manager. He leads a group, a great group, but with yourself and Ned Cohen and Vince Rosman and any number Rob Newsman, any number of people. Elton was a great player seventeen year career. A high character guy, tough, strong, smart, what's he's been like a leader for your group and

this team. Yeah so so I obviously he came to the organization I think four years ago, and you know Mett Elton right away, and that was when Elton was transitioning away from playing to sort of a front office

apprenticeship type role. Brian Clansolo had hired him to do kind of a general you know, kind of apprenticeship, and then he assumed ad league position as the general manager down there, and I think that you know, so I got to know him as a colleague for the first couple of years and it was just really impressed by his inquisitiveness. He asked a lot of questions, was clearly

an active listener and like absorbing on the information. And then when I engage with him privately, like just really wise, really thoughtful, and now he approached things. Obviously, two years ago, Josh Harris David Blitzer made a choice to elevate him to join a manager and you know, looking back, I think it was a really inspired selection just and again I'm openly biased. Right, one of the first things Elton

did was promote me to my current position. And you know, he's an incredible leader, right, just incredibly thoughtful, incredibly perceptive, incredibly bright, asks really tough questions, pushes us as an exact group every day. But I value that, like I want to be pushed, I want to be questioned, and he does that. And just kind of his feel for players,

his feel for coaches, his feel for other exects. It's been just fantastic watching him operate and kind of a privilege to help, you know, implement his vision across the organization. And you do that on a day lead basis, because as you say, Elton Brand has a huge portfolio. I mean, there are so many areas that he's responsible for in

his role as general manager. Yeah, and you're my phrase, but kind of the boots on the ground, with the scouting, with players, with the players, the coaching staff, and life goes on. Our NBA schedule has been altered, but there will be a draft this season, will begin anew a full season the twenty one twenty two campaign, whether that's

in December, whenever that occurs. And granted there's been a hiatus and now here comes the action, which is the focus as well, it should be you've got a lot on your play kind of explain everything that you oversee a right underneath Alton brand sure, so kind of within within the broader basketball operations umbrella, you have those elements, right, So you've got the obviously the team and the coaching

staff that works directly with them and for them. Then you've got kind of the two primary player support departments Athlete care sort of our medical performance group, and then player development was our development coaches, our G league program, team security, a few other things. So like those are all the staff members that support at the end of

the day, our players and so that group. And then on the kind of one layer further removed, you've got the scouting department as you mentioned, and then our research and development department with analytics. So that's all in all

about eighty ninety people in basketball ops. And you know, so you've got Elton obviously, who's in charge of the general manager, the man and a friend of mine in the hockey world actually mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago that you know, as you look back on twenty years ago and you look at the responsibility or front office twenty years ago compared to now, it's just so much more complex. There are so many more stakeholders, so many more responsibilities one person the kind of the

dictator GM of twenty years ago. I don't think that can happen anymore. It's just so much more complex the world that we live in. So so you see a lot more kind of diffuse specialized front offices and a lot of ways and so again it involves a lot of coordination, a lot of collaboration between us internally with the business side, with our media partners, with fans, with the community. So my job is sort of again make sure that Elton's vision is implemented as he intends, and

then involves a lot of kind of grunt work. But yeah, to your point, the last three months, certainly it's been unusual and unprecedented the hiatus, But yeah, the pre draft work has continue to pace. You know, we've had it was a period of the first three months where were having I think three or four scouting meetings a day virtually. Of course, as we all transition to the Zoom lifestyle and then kind of overlaid with that would have been

the off season preparation. We didn't know for a period of time if we were going to hit the off season or we're gonna get more games, And now we're looking at this compressed, which will be exciting off season once we get through the playoffs. And obviously that's the real focus day to day, but we're also having to prepare for the draft in October, free agency in October, and then the resumption of next season in October November.

So when you were talking about preparing for the draft, I talked to another team scouting, one of the scouts, and they had to do a lot of these zoom meetings with prospective draftees players over zoom, like typically what you might do in Chicago or you might bring a young player in. Did you guys have to do that as well? Yeah, So the league, I want to say it was about two months ago, don't don't pin me down to the date, but opened up the door and said, yeah,

you can do prospect interviews now. So we were doing a really rigorous schedule of that up until further recently. So you know, probably a few times a week I would be on zoom calls with six, eight, ten people to include a draft prospect, and you do. It's interesting. I mean, at the end of the day, it's really

about what happens on the basketball court. But I think we all know that as you look at an eighteen, nineteen, twenty twenty one year old, it's so difficult to kind of read the tea leaves, and I think you want to get as much information you can. The chance to talk to a guy, even if it is him, I

think has a lot of value. So we definitely talked to a whole bunch of potential sixers over the last few weeks speaking of those interviews, and this is when it struck me that boy Elton Brand is perfect for this. And this goes back a few years probably he was at that time with the Delaware Blue Coats, as we know, he served as general manager there. But he went on those meetings in Chicago, and you know, as a former player and knowing the whole athlete mindset and just as

you say, asking tough questions. When somebody said a meeting member asked him, you know, what, what's your role on that? And you know, he talked about being very direct with these prospects. You you have a post. He was asking like, what's your support system? And kind of a blunt question that really from an athlete from a former NBA stars two time All Star that that matters to get to the core of some of the questions when you're speaking

about character or what you might expect from a particular athlete. Correct, Yeah, yeah, I mean, so I've spent the bulk of my life studying basketball, right, like I'm a student of the game. Elton lived it, right. I mean, he was an NBA All Star. He was in the NBA for nearly twenty years, you know, playing ex definitely a higher level, and then suffering an injury and then kind of kind of experiencing that.

So he's sort of experienced the full spectrum of what it means to be an NBA player, top to bottom. So he's much better position to know the right questions to ask, to ask them, and frankly to get the answers right. I mean, Elton Brand asking a question of a nineteen to twenty one year old is a very different thing, and then Alex Rucker or Vince rosman or and then Cohen or anyone else. It just carries that different different weight and a different sense of perception. Absolutely,

and your background, and again you have two degrees. You got a law degree, and I love that so I want to get into that. As I mentioned, but your background as far as the NBA goes is it was in an analytics She spends seven years with Toronto and as you said, you studied the game, and you guys

have really built out the robust staff. The Sixers ownership has been really supportive and into that kind of explain that because I know back in the day you probably had a you know, the whole eye check and you know that thing where the old basketball types didn't really welcome analytics. And I think that obviously has passed. But just and you were one of the first guys into this sports view which has become standing standard operating procedure

in the NBA. Give us as lay people, if you will give us a little look see into that how it's evolved over the years and what it is today. Analytics. Yeah, sure, So I think that it's interesting. I think for most people sort of Moneyball that both the book by Michael Lewis and then the subsequent movie starring Brad Pitt, it's sort of the mainstream introduction into quote unquote analytics. I've

never loved that particular label. To me. It's whether it's a front office or our scouting group or a coaching staff or even players. Basketball is this dynamic, you know, vibrant thing, and in this thing, there are so many decisions being made. Those decisions are made based on information, right. I don't think at any level someone's just you know, hey, whatever or you know, whatever moves me emotionally, I'm going

to just do that. It's like no, no, They're all making decisions based on their experiences, based on what they're observing,

based on what they're feeling. And I think that the analytics movement, really starting in baseball in the eighties and then kind of diving more into the other main sports more in the nineties and early two thousands, really was an effort to, hey, we have, in the advent of computers, in the advent of the internet, so much more information, objective information about this thing, and let's try to apply

that to help inform our decisions. And as you mentioned, kind of Josh Harris David Blitzer very focused on kind of evidence based decision making, Like we're gonna make some highly complex, important decisions, let's make sure those decisions are based on the best possible information. So I would say that to the layman if you will analytics and sports or anywhere, is just a desire to get the best

possible information. Data. Data is there's another word for information, and give that to decision makers in a form that they can digest and make better decisions. Hopefully we'll have more of my conversation with Alex Rucker in a moment. In this time of social distancing, Novacare Rehabilitation is offering physical therapy from the comfort and safety of your home. Through their new tele a rehab program, Novacare will virtually bring their services to you so you may heal, build strength,

and get back to the things you love. Tell a rehab let you easily connect with one of Novocare's licensed therapists through web based technology that is Hippo compliant. For more information, visit novacare dot com. Now back to my chat with Alex Rucker of the six or Front Office. Let's jump one step ahead to the players. Because when you said dynamic and it's free flowing, you think of

Ben Simmons. I mean, obviously, the strength of his game is his incredible athleticism and his ability at times to grab the ball off the defensive glass and run at the length of the floor so at some point coach or one of the coaches sits with them and explains, I mean, we all know that threes are better than long twos. We all understand some basic, rudimentary elements of analytics.

But you know, I think of an artist. When Simmons is flying down the court and he's processing all this information, at some point somebody sat down. Obviously, if he gets to the rim, he gets to the rim, that's the best shot. But you know what I mean, like, how does it get how does it get boiled down to the players. So in the flow of the game, the light goes on, Oh right, I'm supposed to kick it out for a three, How does it actually manifest itself

to the players. I know the coaches try to strategize and think what works and whatnot, and there's probably solely layers and layers, But to the point about the players, what would you say there? Yeah, so I think you're

right initially that there's sort of two lanes. Right. One is the coaching lane of they're taking these information, they're thinking a lot about it, and they're trying to put a structure in place that puts players in a position to succeed, Right, like at the end of the day, that's what that whether you're talking strategy, tactics, schemes or whatever. On the player side, So, as I mentioned, we are this kind of robust player development department. They're really the

primary emissaries at the player level, right. So you'll see before games, each of our players will sit down and do video study with one of our deav coaches, right, And so that's not you know, twenty years ago that was a dev coach who had just you know, done some video editing and grab some clips and said, hey,

let's look at these. And now I think it's part of a more holistic process where Brett Elton have to kind of determine our team scheme, our team identity, and then that trickles down to the assistant coach of development coaches and so there's a collective alignment on Hey, these are the things that the Ben Simmons are, the firk on Cork mods are that you know, Shake Milton or Al Horford should be focused on based on a broad period of time or even more recently or in particular

tomorrow's appoint or today's opponent. So I think it's using the tools that they're comfortable with and familiar with, which it's frankly video in conversation. Right, let's watch something and let's have a shared experience of what this means and what we might do differently or better in that situation. So is that answer the question? Yeah, absolutely, I trust me because that's when I used to interview the players and now they're with a coach. I'm so sorry about.

I'm very familiar with that. And you have I think virtually the facility. It's just an unbelievable basketball facility and in there and fans you know, wouldn't be pretty to this, but and I say this in the best possible way, it's like a basketball factory. And I speak of getting back to the analytics. You know, you have a staff of whatever it is, eight to ten people working with huge screens. I mean, you would think it's from Wall

Street or whatever. And they're in there and they're all at work, and they're interpreting this information as you say, the data by way an example like the sports view and for fans that are on a custom that's all these cameras and again it didn't exist, but now it does in every single NBA arena. And again trying to interpret, you know, as just a lay person basketball. Why to me it looks like Doppler radar when you see all the dots around the three point circle. And again there's

probably so many things catch and shoot. Tell me a little bit about that because, as I say, you have that staff at work on all of those things. Yeah. So you know, when I kind of first came here to the train, sauld and Canaden like, yeah, it's it's as far as I know, kind of the most high tech, most kind of sophisticated basketball. You know, factories you said, you know, designed to support our program are not players on a day to day basis. So it's it's an

an incredible privilege. Honestly, I pinched myself every morning going into work that I get to work there. It's amazing kind of to work for the six or to work a place like that, to work for God like Elton. It's just this is amazing, right, this dream come true. Now to your question kind of about sport for you, Yeah, that gets back to the whole basketball in the world.

It become someone more sophisticated. So as you said, there are six, you know, high definition cameras in every NBA Arena and now down in Orlando for our games there, and that gives us just an incredible depth of information about what's happening on the basketball court wherever one at every point in time was tracked, you know, thirty five times per second, where the basketball is at all points in time, and then you can take that, as you said, kind of once you've got that raw data set, you

can then convert that into basketball This is a catch and shoot, This is a bounce pass, this is a you know, trap on a pick and roll. You can identify all those sorts of things and once you've got that layer, then you can convert that into something intuitive to a basketball person. Right, we can say this is every single pick and roll that shake Milton ran, and these are the sorts of coverages and these are the

ones that worked well or didn't work well. So that that crew that you mentioned, that group, you know, again, we're very proud of them. It is sort of like you know, being an MIT science club, if you will. But yeah, they're able to kind of convert all that massive data in games and even outside in the training environment into something that helps informed decisions. Let's talk a little bit about your background. You went to Notre Dame, which you got a law degree, which I want to

get to in a second. But you spent eleven years in the United States Navy. What was that like? What were some of your jobs in the Navy. Yeah, So I joined the Navy and and went to Officer Candidate school. So military is kind of split between enlisted and officers, and if you've got a college background, you're you're eligible to serve as an officer. So I joined and actually shortly after nine eleven. For me, that was something of

a call to service. There's a kind of pretty rich military tradition in my family, and when nine eleven happened, I felt that it was important that I contribute some part of my life to my community beyond just doing what I wanted, which is basketball. So you served for nearly eleven years. I went in when the officer candidate school, joined the aviation pipeline to become an able aviator pilot, So I flew the P three O Ryan for big

chunk of my time in the military. Also had the privilege of serving for three years at the US Naval Academy, where I was a teacher, and then I spent my last two and a half years based in Yokolska, Japan, serving on Admiral staff, So kind of living in Japan, kind of experiencing Japan, Korea, China, Philippines, a little bit

of Australia, although not as much as I might have enjoyed. Yeah, one of the benefits of the Navy is that you have kind of a core thing being a pilot, but they also put you in positions to expand and grow your leadership in different areas. So I definitely got an array of really fascinating experiences. It was definitely hard at times.

It's hard as a father, hard as a husband, but the actual lived experience, you get a chance to do things that no one gets to do, and you get a chance to interact with people across just such a broad cross section of America, and that really opened drives to again learning about how different people's lives communities are. Wow, fascinating.

Thank you for your service. But you grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, which is you know, obviously they had to grizzlies when I first started twenty five years ago, and we all loved going there. It's just talking about the sea and the mountains. What a gorgeous place. Give us a little look, see if you would, to what

it was like growing up in Vancouver. Yeah, so, I mean Vancouver's you said, it's an amazing, amazing city, you know, kind of nestled there by the ocean, just north of Seattle, and you know, you're about a half hour drive to beautiful downhill ski mountains just to the north. So I think the combination of sort of downhill skiing in the winter and then going to relax in the beach in the summer is fairly unique in North America. So, and I also think really enjoyed just the level of multiculturalism

and acceptance. I didn't, honestly. It's it's interesting though, the kind of the last few weeks with respect to the conversation and focus on social justice and racism. Growing up in Vancouver, it wasn't that there wasn't racism or kind of community problem, but it was much less present than it is in certain, you know, areas of this country. So it was I think great for me to grow up in an area where there were large immigrant communities in a really positive and open way. And as you said,

like they when the Gristins were there. They were just passionate supporters of that program, and that was kind of a fun a few years there as well. So gem place I remember talking to my parents. The first place we stayed was a Marriott and it was right on the bay. And as I was looking out the window of a biplane land that I was like given play by play because it was literally right outside the hotel window.

And then years later the league had meetings there. I went on the Capellano Suspension Bridge, where I took a boat at a ferry across the bay, went into a neighborhood, and then there was this unbelievable bridge that went across the gorge. So and as you say, Whistler is right there and just an awesome, beautiful scenery there. But your background includes two degrees, one in business at the University of Bridge, Columbia, and an education background is Simon Fraser.

And you say that normal is a social fixtion. You loved high school clearly you loved the interaction, getting challenge, challenging. People talk a bit about this, you know, this thirst for knowledge in a long lasting to drive for education. Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, I loved high school. Right there was a point where I was like, this is fantastic, right, Like all I need to care about is going to school, learning stuff, becoming a better person, hang out with my friends,

learning from you know, wise teachers. Like that was just such an amazing thing to be a reality of life. Right. And then you get to college and it's much more focused, like you're choosing exactly the sorts of things you're going to study, and again it gets much deeper. And so I just I love reading, I love engaging with people collectually, and that is kind of the the key environment for that to happen, right, Like, that's when you're at college.

That's the only responsibility. You don't have to make money, you don't have to it's like, literally, that's it. Your job is to learn and engage with really bright people. So, whether it was UBC or Simon Fraser, Notre Dame just and even obviously in the Enable Academy when I was working there as well, these academic institutions have been just such incredible environments landscape for me to grow and be pushed.

And Yeah, as I've mentioned to you, probably I would I would have been in school forever but for the inevitable bankruptcy that would have occurred. So yeah, I know that being a lifelong learner is just kind of central to who I am. I as that's so refreshing because I think unfortunately a lot of young people today think of college as it's going to be a great party and I'm going to get a job instead of the actual part of being educated and being more well rounded

and more well read and learning analytically and whatnot. But that's my own personal, my own personal soapbox there. And then you went to Notre Dame. You weren't done. You go to South ben and you're getting a law degree. You were there during you helped out Muffet McGraw on the women's basketball side. There were three men's coaches there, finishing with Mike Gray, but Matt Doherty and John McCloud.

What was life like in terms of going to law school at the University of Notre Yeah, so again, you know, coming from Canada, you know, it was definitely on a big experience. South Bend, Indiana is kind of a very different place in general, and then Notre Dame itself, you know,

kind of a storied Catholic institution. I will say that, you know, I look back on that time as being an incredibly rich intellectual one, I was honestly surrounded by some of the best, brightest people I've ever encountered in my life. Right just to be around that caliber of human being was such a you know, blessing, and yeah,

it was, it was. It was fantastic. Like some of these people that I met, there were some of the best, most thoughtful, most currying people I've ever met, and really intelligent, really pushing the intellectually, so that that aspect was fantastic. Obviously being at this kind of big history, sporting or you know, college as well, it was fantastic. And as you said, the chance to work with just a diverse array of college coaches on the men and women's side

was really formative for me. And I will say that the I told people, you know, many people, you know, I'm now forty five years old, and the single most challenging thing I've ever done was the first semester of law school, right like that. It was such, it was such a fire hose of you know, yeah, I think everyone goes to law school having enjoyed success academically before that point, and then you really do you know, just run right into a brick wall, and you're learning a

new language. Right, People don't think of laws being it's a new language. Like when you start reading legal cases, there's a lot of Latin, and you you're literally referencing a translator book as you read through these passages because you don't understand half of the terms. It's just it's such a you know, splash of the face of trying to figure out the language and trying to think through things, and the teachers push you really hard, like it's not

based green comprehensions, what is the reasoning behind it? And how are you defending that using other cases? And it just it was such a boot camp in thinking and writing and research and in retrospect. It was fantastic. But the first few months you have this is this too much for me? Is this beyond me? There there were definitely those moments of some doubt. Well you mentioned because you actually, I'm sure you use your law degree all the time, but obviously you're not in the courts and

not practicing law. And then my father was a lawyer and did the same thing, ended up being a big president. But to the point about the Latin, I'm like, well, because he took Latin and that years of it and like I should take Latin. It's the only course I ever dropped because I was like thirty minutes in, I go father, I need to see after class, and I was out. And then I growing up as an Irish Catholic young guy and in the Midwest, Notre Dame was

the mecca. And in fact, I went out there for years, like three or four years in a row as a junior high kid and watched the football back when Error Parsigion was the head coach. So I definitely have an affinity for Notre Dame. But you you spoke to me about when you got out of law school. You were sitting with a lawyer in San Francisco, and obviously he asked you about your background, and this gets to what we just spoke of the law. But he said, oh, you don't want to be a lawyer, you go go

pursue basketball. He could sense in you that that was your passion. Tell me about that. Yeah, so it was. It sounds nice when you say it. So it was actually a job interview with a you know, person that I've been connected to with your Notre Dame, and so I was out flown out San Francisco for this job interview. I was in my mind at least thinking this would be an amazing opportunity to get get a job of

this law firm. And he was a partner there and yeah, you know, probably halfway through our lunch together, he's like, yeah, Alex, you you don't want to be a lawyer. And I'm like, wow, that's a studying revelation, given that I I just spent three years studying it, and I was hoping you'd hired me

to be a lawyer. But no, And then and explained as you did, which is like, it's it was clear from our conversation that you know what I was passionate about, what I really found fulfilling was my time working with the basketball programs while in law school. And that you know, he's hasn't all is not lost. You know, you've got the law degree in the reality is, as long as you have that, people will think you're smart, whether you are or not. I was like, oh, that's pretty strength.

So but I will say that a lot of people that get law degrees. I would say that there's a big chunk of my colleagues from law school who initially did go work as lawyers, and I did too for a year. But you know, I think it's quite common to go work in law firm or work in public practice for a while and then you know, delafie, whether it's into management or some other foreign public service or

politics or anything. And as I said, I think law school you don't learn the law so much as you learn reading, writing, research and thinking right like these just really foundational skills to a wide array of disciplines right case law and whatnot. Interesting. So we're going to close with Canadian basketball as part of your background. Obviously I mentioned the Raptors for seven years, but you work with

the US men's team in Canada and Canadian basketball. I'm kind of prepping a little bit for the Sixest play Oklahoma over the weekend and in another scrimmage, and that Shay Gildes Alexander the second year guard for them, and Barrett and on Steve Nash of course, on and on and on the way that Canadian basketball has taken off, and clearly the NBA going there twenty five years ago has been intricral in the transition. But you've seen it all.

Isn't that amazing how much that Canadian basketball has taken off and how many players they produced at an extremely high level here in the States and specifically in the NBA. Oh yeah, I know. I mean when I you know, was born in the seventies and eighties, you know, basketball in Canada wasn't even a fraction of what it's become now.

And it's interesting because, you know, Vince Carter recently retired, and I'm not sure how well inderstood it is just the depth of impact that Vince Carter had during his time with the Raptors. I mean, just the level of excitement and passion for basketball in as the whole country of Canada, but not just Toronto, but the entire country. What Vince did his first few years there in Toronto really did, I think, plant the seed for what we're

seeing now, right. And when you talk to guys like you know, Andrew Wiggins or as you said, Steve Nash, or like any of these guys, they all kind of are aware of the role that he played in their lives, right, and especially this kind of younger generation you said, like

Shay Gilgith, Alexander, you know, RJ. Barrett. You know, there's kind of a ton of guys who are coming along now in the NBA, who are again part of that you know, if you will, that that that playing tree, that that kind of seeded or was seated by Vince Carter. So you know, I think we're we from Canada are really grateful for what Vince did for the country, for

the sport of basketball. But yeah, it's it's absolutely during during our lifetime seeing sort of the extent to which Canada basketball has grown to develop these high level NBA players. It's been just so fun, so fascinating, awarding to watch, Alex. I can't thank you enough, great conversation. We wish you the best. We'll see us soon. Thank you, Thanks so much, Tom appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Tom's talks with me Tom McGinnis on the seventy six Ers podcast network.

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