Toronto FC has a youth academy and the Raptors should too

It is time for a change in the development of our young Canadian basketball stars. We need to stop shipping them off to the U.S and keep them right here in Toronto and develop them into stars who eventually play for the Toronto Raptors. Toronto FC has a youth academy and the Raptors should too. 

The NBA is no longer just an American game. Basketball has evolved into a global game over the past 20 years with 14 of the 60 players selected in the 2017 NBA draft born outside of the United States. That amount was double in 2016 with 28 of the 60 born outside of the U.S.

Even though the game has gone global, the model for player development is strictly the American way. Players are basically forced to attend college in the United States and then hope they can be one of the 60 players drafted into the NBA.

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The system is out of date and doesn’t focus on player development from a young age.

The main focus of many of the NCAA schools and AAU programs in the U.S and Canada is financial asset development for their program and not individual player or people development.

The Toronto Raptors are owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) which also owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto FC.

Toronto FC has a youth academy where the club signs players into the organization as young as 10 or 11 years-old.

The players compete as Toronto FC players against the best level of competition all throughout their youth and teenage years. The club also has teams that compete at the under 21 level and the under 23 level.

Players who play for the TFC academy maintain their eligibility to obtain scholarships in the NCAA if that is an option they choose or they can stick with the club and compete up until the age of 23.

The players are surrounded by highly certified coaches, current and former professionals as well as the best training facilities, staff and dieticians available.

The academy players are also often surrounded by the TFC first team players like Michael Bradley and Sebastian Giovinco and have the opportunity to see first hand how they train and compete on a daily basis.

Its time that the Toronto Raptors started an academy to develop the abundance of elite talent available to them in the Greater Toronto area as well as elsewhere across Canada.

There are no Canadians on the Raptors current roster and only Cory Joseph and Jamaal Magloire come to mind as the only Toronto area guys to ever suit up for the Raps.

That has to change.

If the Raptors had an academy that was similar to TFC they would be able to recognize and evaluate the best Canadian players from a very young age and help develop them into superstars for the big club.

Why are we letting our best young players leave and go to the U.S?

If the Raptors had an academy, its fair to think that the likes of Tristan Thompson and Jamal Murray could’ve come up through that system and eventually played for Toronto.

Guys like RJ Barrett and Simi Shittu are five-star recruits from the Toronto area and are currently being recruited by the likes of Kentucky and Duke among dozens of other American schools. They both could be property of the Raptors organization if they had an academy of their own and were able to sign them as youngsters.

Instead, many top players come through the high school ranks and are coached by a high school teacher who may or may not have any experience playing or coaching basketball which is why many of the best Toronto born players often attend high school or prep schools in the U.S.

The OSBA is an improvement for high school aged kids in Ontario but they still don’t have the coaching and facilities available to them anywhere near the quality of what the kids in the Toronto FC academy have available to them. 

CBC aired an excellent documentary on the Fifth Estate a few years back that highlighted the downfalls of the prep school system in the U.S and how poorly the system is run and monitored.

There hasn’t exactly been sweeping changes to the system since that show aired in 2012.

The academy system works all around the world for the biggest clubs in Europe and South America and it’s beginning to bare fruit for Toronto FC.

If you were the parent on elite young basketball player, would you rather send your 15 or 16 year-old son off to some school in a small town in the southern U.S with very little supervision or guidance or would you rather he stayed home in Toronto and was coached by the same coaches who coach the Toronto Raptors in the exact same facilities?

The answer is simple.

It is time for a change in the development of our basketball stars. We need to stop shipping them off to the U.S and keep them right here in Toronto and develop them into stars who eventually play for the Toronto Raptors.

Next: Matter of time before the Raptors have a home grown superstar.