It was a busy trade deadline for Canadians in the NBA. The newest entrant to the top-three in our power rankings wasn’t among the players moved at the deadline, but shortly after the Memphis Grizzlies traded away Andre Iguodala, they re-signed Dillon Brooks to a lavish three-year, $35 million contract extension.
Brooks, the 24-year-old from Mississauga, has had a breakthrough season with the Grizzlies, and led all Canadians in scoring in the month of January with 20.5 points per game. Not a bad way to earn a bag. As always, these rankings are provided by TSN basketball analysts Kate Beirness, Kayla Grey, Michael Hamarneh and Josh Lewenberg.
Falling out of the top-three is Andrew Wiggins, who does get a change of scenery after the Minnesota Timberwolves sent him to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for D’Angelo Russell.
Wiggins was off to a strong start this season, cutting out many of his favored long twos for threes or shots closer to the rim, and he’ll get plenty of touches this season before Steph Curry and Klay Thompson rejoin the lineup for next year’s contending squad. It’ll be interesting to see what he does as a temporary go-to guy, as well as what his fit looks like when the Splash Brothers return.
Dwight Powell, who ruptured his Achilles two weeks ago, falls out of the rankings, while undrafted rookie Luguentz Dort climbs in with a strong run of games since being called up from the G League. A few weeks back, he contributed to a defensive effort that held James Harden to his worst three-point shooting game ever, and last week he went off for 23 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder’s fill-in starting shooting guard.
Programming note: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Brandon Clarke, R.J. Barrett and Nickeil Alexander-Walker will all be playing in next weekend’s Rising Stars Game for Team World. If you wanted to catch a glimpse of the Canadian national team’s bright future, or just wanted to see cousins Shai and Nickeil team up, this will definitely be a good chance for that.
