'Tall kid playing hockey' to NBA star, Zach Edey comes home to face Raptors

Article content

Canada’s biggest export to the NBA will finally get to play at home on Wednesday.

Zach Edey, the 7-foot-4, 22-year-old from Leaside, just a bit northeast of Scotiabank Arena, has gone from curiosity to contributor in short order. Not many lottery picks land with contenders, but Edey returns with his Memphis Grizzlies winners of 9-of-10 and trailing only Hamilton-born superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference standings.

Edey went from a project at Purdue University in Indiana, to the first Canadian to be named NCAA player of the year. He did it twice for good measure, delaying his NBA chances after losing the NCAA title game following his third year at the school. He became the first player since Ralph Sampson in the early 1980s to repeat as player of the year and rode that momentum, and a strong summer of workouts with NBA teams, to becoming the ninth selection of the NBA draft by the Memphis Grizzlies last June.
Edey has been playing some of his best basketball yet recently. He had 16 points, 14 rebounds and three steals without committing a foul in Monday’s blowout win over phenom Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs. Edey didn’t commit a foul in a win over Giannis Antetokounmpo a game earlier either, while picking up a double-double.

The next game, Wembanyama, listed at 7-foot-3, but probably about the same height as Edey, did OK, but Edey was a game-best +25 and as usual, didn’t look intimidated at all. “He’s probably the only other dude in the NBA I can look eye-to-eye with,” Edey had told reporters before the game. “Definitely looking forward to this one.”Edey had been far quieter in two other recent meetings (though he left one after only seven minutes due to injury), but still managed to throw down a huge dunk on Wembanyama in one of them, impressing superstar teammate Ja Morant. He also scored 21 points (his second-most this season) and added 16 rebounds, his career high, in a blowout win over the Raptors at Memphis earlier this season.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

While it might seem obvious now that Edey was going to be an NBA starter, the idea seemed rather far-fetched when he was in high school on either side of the border and when he got to Purdue. He didn’t even make the first team at IMG Academy in Florida after moving there from Toronto and Leaside High and he was extremely raw when he started competing for Toronto-based AAU program Northern Kings.

While the classic hoops saying “you can’t teach size” will always be true, Edey had other interests, namely hockey and baseball.

“My dad told me about him a long time ago,” Raptors wing RJ Barrett told Postmedia recently. “(Barrett’s father, Canadian men’s national team general manager Rowan Barrett) was telling me, ‘Yeah, there’s this tall kid that was playing hockey.’ I was like: ‘Hockey?’… I saw him. I was like, Whoa. That’s a big guy right there,’” Barrett said.

When talking to his peers about first impressions of Edey, it is immediately clear how much needed to happen for Edey to become first the best player in college basketball and then a rookie of the year candidate in the NBA.

“He came a long way. I think my first year Team Canada, he came in, he was not at Purdue yet and we were like: ‘Yeah, he needs to go up there get better and faster,’” Raptors forward Chris Boucher said.

“And then he did (four years) at Purdue and he came back and he was everything that any NBA teams wants so I think he has really made himself in a good position where he’s at now,” Boucher said. “With his size and all, I think it’s a weapon for the NBA and we know what his future is going to look like. He’s going to be playing for a long time and he’s going to represent Canada for the bigs now.”

Raptors veteran Kelly Olynyk, who captained Team Canada and once upon a time was the youngest member of the team, like Edey has been when he’s participated, is proud to see Edey’s rise.

“To see his development, from seeing him in high school to college, and then just how much he’s grown, it’s amazing to see him,” Olynyk sai.
“It just shows his work ethic, his diligence and his desire to be good. He wants to get better, he’s always asking questions, always putting in extra work and you don’t see that often from young guys these days,” Olynyk said.

“You see it, but it’s not a guarantee. And the way he was dominating college basketball he didn’t really have to do more and do this or that and he dominated for two, three years, but he knew he was going to have to do more and get better to make on this level and have an impact on this level and he’s continued to do that and that’s a testament to him.

Edey was doubted, even as recently as this summer when some teams weren’t anywhere close to as high on him as Memphis and some others were. And while he’s never going to be as mobile as smaller centres, Edey has not looked out of place.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

“I think that’s always the biggest key with those big guys, is, how do we use him on the floor?,” RJ Barrett said. “Sometimes they have slower feet and stuff. But, you know, Zach is up, he’s moving. He’s getting up and down the floor. Obviously, he’s a huge presence in the paint. You can’t just shoot over him. He changes shots. He does a lot of things overall for them,” Barrett said.

“He’s playing really well. He’s doing a great job. They’ve carved out a nice role for him over there, I like how they’ve been using him,” Olynyk added.

Jakob Poeltl, who will go head-to-head with Edey on Wednesday, thinks it helps that Edey landed in Memphis, a tremendous fit with their rugged, mobile, defence-first approach.

“He’s been doing pretty well. He’s obviously using his physical advantages really, and then, yeah, making up for maybe a lack of speed or, like, whatever people are trying to take advantage of,” Poeltl told Postmedia.
“I think they’re just a very gritty team overall. So as long as he’s on that team, and, they have that team mindset over there, I think he’s (going to do well).”

Poeltl doesn’t believe it’s fair to put the world’s biggest prospects “in a box like that” (by assuming that because they are 7-foot-2 or larger they won’t be able to defend in the NBA.

“There (will be) guys who are not going to be able to adapt and then there are some who are going to be able to adapt,” Poeltl said. “It’s up to him individually to figure out how to assert himself in the NBA.”

So far so good. Edey’s long-awaited homecoming comes with him ranking second amongst all rookies in rebounding, sixth in scoring, fourth in blocks, second in plus-minus and in double-doubles.

“Great kid, great family happy for them and happy for Canada getting to see him play at home for once,” Olynyk said.

@WolstatSun