Gordon Herbert is a winner. But what makes him the right choice to lead Canada now? 

When Canada’s men lost to France in the quarterfinals of the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Canadian basketball community immediately began reaching for explanations. 

Fans and media harped on the uneven refereeing and the questionable roster and rotation decisions. But the most prominent issue being brought up was the lack of Canadian coaches on the sidelines.

Former head coach, Jordi Fernandez is Spanish and several of his assistants are American, while only Nathaniel Mitchell is Canadian. Some people viewed the lack of homegrown talent on the bench as a reason for the team’s downfall, suggesting that if there was more shared history between the players and coaches — and more passion on the bench — the team could have achieved its goal of winning its first Olympic medal since 1936. 

All that might be true. But when Canada’s coaching staffs were entirely made up of Canadians in past regimes led by Leo Rautins and Jay Triano, Canada had even less success. In fact, Fernandez led Canada to its most successful quadrennial in history, winning a historic bronze at the 2023 FIBA World Cup and finishing fifth at the 2024 Olympics — its first appearance at the Games in 24 years.

One problem has been the lack of world-class Canadian coaching candidates. Aside from Roy Rana, who led Canada’s boys to its first ever gold at the 2017 Under-19 World Cup and has been estranged from the program since 2019, most Canadian coaches are either assistants in the NBA or have just started to get good jobs overseas. 

The development of Canadian coaches lags behind that of its players due to the lack of infrastructure, as there was never a great place for coaches to develop within the country until recently with the establishment of top-tier club and prep programs, the CEBL, and Canada Basketball’s National Training Centre at Humber College — where Mitchell has taken on a key role developing young coaches since 2017. 

As a result of that lack of infrastructure, Canadian coaches have had to leave the country and learn elsewhere on their own. They had to go through adversity, adapt, and learn the human side as well as the Xs and Os of basketball while moving up the international coaching ranks by winning on the biggest stages. And no Canadian embodies that entrepreneurial spirit better than the new head coach of the Canadian men’s national team, Gordon Herbert. 

Herbert was born in Penticton, B.C. in 1959 and played ice hockey as a kid. He hated the Toronto Maple Leafs and worshipped the Montreal Canadiens until Vancouver got a team. But he grew quickly and started playing basketball when he was 14, inspired by his mother, who was a former player at UBC. 

After winning MVP of a Gonzaga University basketball camp in nearby Spokane, Washington, Herbert left Canada to chase his dream of playing in the NCAA at North Idaho Junior College for two years before landing a scholarship at the University of Idaho in 1977. It was during that time that Herbert attended training camp for the Canadian national team, coached by hall-of-famer Jack Donahue. There were 40 players at camp and Herbert was the first one cut. 

However, after averaging 12.6 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 3.6 assists and leading the Vandals to a program-best 27–3 record and a trip to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen during his senior year in 1982, Herbert returned to tryouts and made the team. “I had two dreams or goals,” Herbert said on the X&O’s Chat Podcast. “One was to go to college in the States, and two was to play for the Canadian national team.” 

A year later, Herbert was a key member of the Miracle on Hardwood — Canada’s first gold medal at an international basketball event, when Herbert, Jay Triano, Eli Pasquali, Bill Wennington and the best University-aged Canadians took down Yugoslavia and Team USA at the 1983 Summer Universiade in Edmonton, Alberta. Herbert went on to represent Canada at the 1984 Olympics, where they finished fourth. 

Herbert started playing pro ball in Europe to stay in shape for the national team, but he ran into a number of knee injuries and transitioned to coaching after ten years overseas. He met his wife in Finland, got his masters degree in Sports Psychology, and still didn’t return home. There was more to learn.

After five years coaching in Finland, Herbert moved to Austria and then Germany, where his first big break came coaching Dirk Nowitzki’s former team, Würzburg. He later captured the German league title with the Frankfurt Skyliners in 2004, added a FIBA EuroCup crown and Bundesliga Coach of the Year honours in 2016, and worked as an assistant with the Toronto Raptors during the 2008-09 season and as a consultant with the Brooklyn Nets in 2019-20.

But despite so many years abroad, and learning from international coaching giants that he now considers friends such as Ettore Messina, David Blatt, and Tuomas Iisalo, Herbert’s coaching philosophy and identity come from Canada. He may be foreign-raised, but he is home-grown. In fact, his first coaching mentors were Jack Donahue — who steered the Canadian men program to its most successful era between 1972-1988 — and Ken Shields, who was an assistant with Donahue as well as a seven-time U Sport champion at the University of Victoria. 

Upon getting cut from his first Team Canada tryout, Donahue taught Herbert an important lesson — the first of many that Herbert would take from his Canadian coaches. “I always say the 12 best players will not make the team. Never,” Herbert said on the podcast, quoting a famous saying of Donahue. “The nine best probably will. 10, 11, and 12 are very, very important. They’ve got to be good teammates. They got to bring something specific to the table.”

“What helped me immensely in coaching, when I played for the Canadian national team, I was always 10, 11, or 12,” he added. “And it was difficult, very difficult. And my first year playing with the Canadian national team, I had a bad attitude. And the next summer, when I came to camp, the coach came and talked to me and said, ‘you’ve made the team. You come in with this BS attitude that you had last year, you can go home today.’ And it really made me understand that I had to become a good teammate, and how difficult it is to be the 10th, 11th and 12th man. That has really helped me in coaching today.”

Throughout a 30-year coaching journey that has taken Herbert from Finland to Austria to Germany — where he won gold with the German national team at the 2023 World Cup before landing a job at EuroLeague giant FC Bayern Munich — Herbert always dreamed of returning home. There have been stints with the program already. He was an assistant coach with the national team under Triano from 2001-02 and returned to the sidelines in 2018, helping guide Canada to a 6-0 record through multiple FIBA World Cup qualifying windows between 2018-2021. 

Herbert interviewed to be the head coach of Team Canada twice and was the runner-up both times: first in 2005 when Leo Rautins got the job and again in 2019 when Nick Nurse got the job. He opted to work as the associate head coach under Nurse at the 2019 World Cup and the 2021 Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Finally, the third time was a charm, as Canada Basketball announced that Herbert will officially take over from Fernandez as head coach next summer and lead the team through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Sportsnet first reported the news.

“I’m incredibly honoured and excited for the opportunity to coach my home country,” Herbert said in a press release. “Canada Basketball has made tremendous progress in recent years, and the depth of talent in the program is as good as anywhere in the world. 

“I look forward to building on the strong culture that’s been established and working with our athletes to continue pushing Canada to new heights.”

While it was originally reported that Fernandez stepped down from the job due to obligations to his family and the Brooklyn Nets, sources say that the parting of ways was at the very least more mutual, as Canada Basketball was in a position of power to scour the globe for the top international coaches. With MVP-favourite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander committed to the program and a host of Canadian NBA players entering the prime of their careers, Canada Basketball had its pick of the litter.

“We are first looking for coaches that have experience winning medals at the World Cup or the Olympics,” general manager of men’s high performance, Rowan Barrett, told Sportsnet. “And there (has) been interest (from) candidates from all over the world.”

Instead of casting a wide net and interviewing tens of applicants, Canada went after just its top candidates, including Herbert. Due to his history with the program and his resume of winning international basketball medals, he was their top priority all along. As one person familiar with the program told me, “Rowan will exhaust his options for FIBA before he opens it up to NBA types.”

Due to a clause in the contract he signed with Bayern in 2024, sources say Herbert cannot coach internationally until the summer of 2026, when his current contract with Bayern is set to expire. Canada Basketball did not demand a full-time commitment from coaching candidates, so Herbert could extend his contract with Bayern beyond 2026. 

However, there would be a lot of advantages of having a full-time head coach for the years anticipating the 2027 World Cup in Qatar, where Herbert could travel around the world to establish relationships with Canadian players, and even host coaching clinics across the country — something Canada Basketball used to do with its previous full-time head coaches like Donahue and Shields. 

While Herbert’s resume is impressive, he has relatively little familiarity with the generation of Canadian athletes that will make up the rosters of the teams in 2027 and 2028. It’s especially limited compared to some of the other potential head coaching candidates including Mitchell, Rana, Dave Smart, Scott Morrison, and Raptors assistant Jama Mahlalela, who was a finalist for the job after interviewing in Toronto last month. Several of them could be on Herbert’s staff going forward, as could Triano, who was let go from his position as Associate Head Coach of the Sacramento Kings last week. Their presence could be beneficial in terms of relationship-building, but Herbert will of course have to do that work as well.

The 2025 FIBA AmeriCup will likely be coached by either Mitchell or Nate Bjorkgren, sources say, while Herbert will serve as an unofficial advisor. The expectation is to hold a senior team training camp in Toronto in August before a team of overseas pros and young NBA players makes the trip to Nicaragua from August 22-31. Canada has a chance to make a statement and win its first ever AmeriCup gold.

When Herbert does officially take over in 2026, he will bring a FIBA-centric philosophy to the national team. After all, Herbert developed his coaching philosophy in Europe and he was not afraid to make changes to the German national team when he took over in 2021, asking for a three-year commitment from players and remaining significantly more steadfast on it than Canada was with its own flexible demand for a three-year commitment. In fact, Herbert did not allow players to join midway through the quadrennial even when NBA players like Isaiah Hartenstein couldn’t commit to the first year due to contract issues. 

“With the national team, you have to build it year after year after year,” Herbert said on the podcast. “You need a core group going from one summer to the next summer to the next summer, because you have a very short period of time with this group. And to me, that was our strength with the national team. We’re able to build one year after another.”

Herbert prides himself on his ability to adapt to the times and to his players. The question is: will he impose a strict three-year core philosophy with Canada, even if some NBA players won’t commit to three more summers? Will he hand the captaincy to 26-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander, similar to what he did with Dennis Schroder and Germany? And will he impart Donahue’s philosophy on the roster, potentially favouring overseas players over NBA guys for the final few spots?

All that is yet to be determined. What we do know is that for the first time since 2019, the Canadian men’s basketball team will be coached by a Canadian, showing how far the Canadian coaching landscape has grown in recent years. Historically, the talent pool has not been deep enough for Canada Basketball to identify several high-level candidates before ultimately landing one of the best coaches in the world — one who happens to be Canadian.

And on the women’s side, that development still lags behind, as sources say that incoming general manager Steve Baur has identified an American to lead the program going forward, with an announcement expected later this week. 

After learning from Canadian legends and going overseas to develop his skills, Herbert carries the legacy of past great Canadian teams and coaches with him. Now, his job is not only to repeat their successes, but finally to surpass them. 

The post Gordon Herbert is a winner. But what makes him the right choice to lead Canada now?  first appeared on Raptors Republic.