Montreal’s Finest: A rising star city of basketball talent

Basketball in Canada has been on the come up for years now, but since the Toronto Raptors’ championship victory in 2019, the Canadian talent pool and the spotlight on these players has seemingly boomed.

But Toronto isn’t the only city in Canada. Despite it being the only city in the North with an NBA franchise — for now — game-changing talent has been on a steady rise in the not-so-far city of Montreal, QC. 

A few of these players just got paid, majorly, despite heavy odds stacked against them. A few of them represent Canada on the Raptors. One of these players is lauded as a future star after tearing up the NCAA. Montreal is well-represented in the NBA, and the talent will only continue to keep getting better and better as the city continues to produce more talent in the years to come. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Luguentz Dort 

Lu Dort, 23, went undrafted out of Arizona State, where he earned Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and Pac-12 All-Defense Team honours, in 2019. Choosing to forgo his last three years of college eligibility, he signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder as a free agent and has since become one of the league's best young perimeter defenders.

Dort averaged career highs of 17.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game this past season, his third with OKC. As a reward for betting on himself early, Dort signed a hefty five-year, $87.5-million extension with the Thunder on the first day of free agency. He has also committed to representing Canada, agreeing to a three-year stint with the Canadian Men’s National team, including in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. 

Chris Boucher

The 29-year-old Chris Boucher recently signed a three year, $32.25 million dollar extension with the Toronto Raptors, a deal that came as a culmination of sheer hard work in one of the unlikeliest success stories that gave us one of the most heartwarming moments you’ll ever see.

At 16, Chris Boucher dropped out of high school. He was washing dishes for $10/hour at age 19 and bouncing around junior colleges by 22, before suffering a devastating ACL tear. He went undrafted that year before getting picked up on a two-way deal with the Golden State Warriors, where he spent the majority of time in the G-League. The Raptors, seeing Boucher’s talent, eventually picked him up and developed him from a solid G League talent into a proven NBA rotation player. Finally, during this free agency period, Toronto gave him the long-term security he has fought tooth and nail for.

Khem Birch

It took some time and quite a few miles for the Raptors’ Khem Birch to make it the position he’s made it to in his career up to this point. He transferred schools before going undrafted in the 2014 draft, eventually signing with Miami before being waived. From there, he spent time in the then-NBA D-League as well as Turkey and Greece. He eventually signed with the Orlando Magic, getting a shot as a bench player and even re-signing on the way. He was eventually waived in April 2021, before getting picked up by the Raptors.

Playing in Toronto for less than a month before the season’s end, Birch took the opportunity and ran with it, breaking his own career-high in points and three pointers before re-upping with the team on a three-year, $20 million deal. As a valuable depth piece to the Raptors who continues to climb steadily, he has also agreed to represent Canada, committing to the men’s national team for the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup.

Bennedict Mathurin

The 20-year old Mathurin is a star on the rise in the basketball world. He regularly made crowds go wild while starring for the University of Arizona Wildcats for the the past two seasons, before being selected sixth overall by the Indiana Pacers in this year's NBA Draft . Before Mathurin reached this level of stardom, he played on the public courts of Montreal-Nord, one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods – both Dort and Boucher hail from the area as well. 

He got into the game of basketball at an early age because of his sister, Jennifer. Later, the sport became an escape for the young Mathurin, who used it to cope with the loss of their late brother. Mathurin chose to work even harder to honour his fallen sibling. With a chip on his shoulder and love for the city in his heart, Mathurin plans to return to Montreal-Nord to grow the game of basketball as much as he possibly can and to be an inspiration to those growing up having to fight the odds, similarly to his route to the NBA. The future of both Montreal and Canada basketball live in him as he begins to carve out his legacy.

While Canada continues to be represented more and more in the NBA, the city of Montreal is an important cog to that growing success. Lu Dort, Chris Boucher, Khem Birch and now, Bennedict Mathurin are all representing their city in the NBA as the league’s only active Montrealers. They won’t be the last as they continue to inspire the next generation and grow the sport in “la belle province.”