Everything's always changing in international basketball

Canada and the Dominican Republic are rising. France is slipping out of the picture.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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On Friday, the Canadian team had gone into halftime with a 3-point lead in a critical opener against France despite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shooting just 2/9 in the first two quarters. In fact, he was thoroughly outplayed by FIBA superstar Evan Fournier in that first half. The social media graphics don’t lie.

Then Canada won the third quarter 25-8 to put a pure blowout on the table. And then Canada won the fourth by double-digits too to come out of Game 1 of group play with a 30-point win over a gold medal contender.

Shai took that social media graphic, printed it out and burned it to ash.

Dillon Brooks was brilliant on both ends, and Rudy Gobert was a complete afterthought for France (8 points, 9 rebounds with 1 block).

Canada followed this win up by pummeling Lebanon in Game 2 by 53 points on Sunday — that’s the most lopsided final score yet in the tournament. The Canadians scored 128 points in that game, the highest total yet in the tournament by about a dozen. And no one played more than 21 minutes: there was a lot of garbage time here.

We’ve been waiting so long for the rise of Canada, and here it is, led by a top-10 player in the world in Shai with a really good supporting cast. Hopes of a Canadian-American rivalry in top-flight international basketball has stirred since the Canadian invasion in the NBA began a decade ago. It sure looks like it’s here.

Meanwhile, France followed up their stunning blowout loss to Canada by … losing to Latvia, who is missing Kristaps Porzingis but had a very vocal, very excited traveling contingent of fans.