By Canadian Press

Crown League generating plenty of basketball buzz in Toronto

Jul 27, 2018 | 10:00 AM

TORONTO — Duane Watson stuck his head outside Toronto’s Kerr Hall Gymnasium on a Friday night last summer to gauge the growing lineup. It was still well before the first Nike Crown League game of the night would tip off, but knowing some fans would surely be turned away as the old gym’s seams stretched to capacity, people showed up early.

“Jay Triano (Canada’s men’s head coach) was like the 10th person in line,” Watson laughed.

Part basketball game, part party, part summer reunion, the Crown League is the place to be for basketball’s who’s-who for five consecutive Friday nights in the summer, a time when the game has otherwise faded into the background.

Now in its fourth year, the Crown League was spearheaded by Nike’s Charles Yearwood both to give Canada’s best players a place to play in the summer, and to showcase the game in an intimate community setting.

“Delon (Wright) and Norm (Powell) played last year in the finals, and if you’re a kid and you’re in a gym and you’re within five feet of Delon or Norm, that’s a big deal,” Watson said of the Toronto Raptors teammates. “It’s giving that platform to showcase the talent that exists, especially if you’re a guy overseas, you don’t get an opportunity to play in front of family and friends. And it’s also showing Toronto at large that there’s a ton of high-level guys who can play at a high calibre in this city.”

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Watson is the commissioner of the six-team pro-am league, which pits a handful of NBA players against college kids and others plying their trade in pro leagues abroad. It culminated in Friday’s finale between Brady Heslip’s 1Love T.O. and M.A.D.E., featuring Raptors 905 guard and former Ryerson standout Aaron Best.

The third-place game saw 6Man playing Northern Kings. CIA Bounce and ACE were the league’s other two teams.

“It’s nostalgic for me, it feels good to go back,” Best said of playing at Kerr Hall, part of the Ryerson University campus. “It’s like a reunion playing against everybody, seeing everybody who’s been overseas for a year, guys you haven’t played with or played against in a while . . . it’s like going back to your old high school, except everybody’s grown up, you get to catch up with everybody.

“And it gives a chance for the younger guys coming up to get out and have a chance to play against some pros, and people who want to be pros. It’s just all around a good basketball environment.”

Nike provided the marketing muscle, dressing up the gym in the heart of Toronto’s downtown with theatre lighting against a dramatic black background. “Claim Royalty” is splashed in giant letters across one brick wall. A DJ pumps music. The blue bleachers rumble with every big play. Admission is free.

Miami Heat forward Kelly Olynyk played last summer, stuffing people’s Instagram stories when he banked in a three at the buzzer to send his team to the semifinals. Fresh off playing with the L.A. Lakers in NBA summer league, Xavier Rathan-Mayes had 43 points for CIA Bounce last week. Raptors’ Pascal Siakam has played.

“Every week somebody does something special,” said Heslip, who played for the Memphis Grizzlies in his fourth NBA summer league stint. “They just go there and try to put on a show.”

Clippers rookie Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, selected 11th overall in last month’s NBA draft, suited up last week and was expected for Friday’s finale.

Last summer Cory Joseph showed up to watch in a Pacers hat just days after the Raptors traded him to Indiana.

NBA rules prevent Crown League from promoting its players. That only adds to the intrigue.

“No one really knows (who’ll show up to play), so people always come not knowing who to expect,” said Watson, the league’s commissioner since Day 1.

Said Best: “The second week . . . we had Jermaine Anderson and Jevohn Shepherd, two legends in the Toronto scene. Watching them take over the game and see them just flourish in the environment and the competition and eventually help us win the game was just something special.”

The teams are coached by people who’ve helped write Toronto’s rich basketball history. Denham Brown, who famously went off for 111 points in a high school game for West Hill Collegiate Institute, coaches 6Man. CIA Bounce is coached by its founder Tony McIntyre. Coach and GM of the Northern Kings is Vidal Massiah, who played NCAA Div. 1 for St. Bonaventure, captained Canada’s national team and is a basketball legend in Toronto.

The Crown League is modelled after other summer events like the Drew League, the pro-am in South Central Los Angeles that boasts DeMar DeRozan among its regulars.

Roy Rana, who coached Canada to a historic gold at last summer’s U19 World Cup, said the Crown League has had “a powerful impact in a short period of time on our basketball landscape.

“It’s brought together our basketball community from high school, U Sport, NCAA and pros from around the world and the NBA,” said Rana, who’s also Ryerson’s head coach. “And it’s also become a great place to see the growth and tightness of our Toronto basketball community every Friday night.”

Rana and his U19 squad was celebrated during the Crown League last summer. Two summer’s ago, the crowd feted Canada’s Olympic women’s team before it boarded its flight to Rio.

Danilo Djuricic was one of the U19 players honoured last summer. This year, he jumped at Brown’s invitation to play for 6Man.

“It’s just a great atmosphere playing this high level basketball, great players, big names sometimes show up,” said the 19-year-old who’s weeks away from his sophomore season at Harvard.

“The opportunity to play live five-on-five basketball, with referees, people in the crowd, and actually have game-like situations to put what I’ve been working on behind the lights, in the shadows, to put it to use in a game-like situation has been huge for my development.”

For the last half decade, Canada has sent more players to the NBA than any other country outside the U.S., most of them from Toronto’s basketball hotbed. 

Duane Notice, who helped South Carolina to an NCAA Final Four appearance in 2017, said Crown League gives players networking opportunities with Canadian and Raptors 905 coaches.

He also loves its distinct northern vibe.  

“(Crown League) is very Canadian-influenced, a lot of guys are very patriotic about their country when it comes to playing basketball and representing Canada on the basketball level,” he said.

Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press