As Zach Edey makes Toronto debut, big man’s hockey roots apparent in NBA

It is the biggest homecoming in Canadian basketball history.

And apologies off the top for coming with a size-related dad joke, but it’s Zach Edey, so it’s almost impossible to resist.

Hey, he’s a big deal — seven-foot-four and 300 pounds of Memphis Grizzly.

It’s not all that unusual any more for Canadian NBA players to make their Toronto debut anymore. There was a time when these events were rare. When Steve Nash was a rookie, there were only two other Canadians in the league, neither from Toronto. When Edey joined the Memphis Grizzlies as the ninth player taken in the 2024 draft after his record-breaking career at Purdue University, he was one of 26 Canadians on an NBA roster, the majority with GTA ties.

But this one is a little different, mainly because Canada’s never produced an NBA player like Edey. The two-time NCAA player of the year is the most successful college player in Canadian history, the biggest big man we’ve ever had make it to the NBA, and also one of the unlikeliest of all of the Canadian-to-the-NBA stories we’ve ever heard.

No one’s path to the NBA is ever linear, but Edey’s is like using the map function while walking with your phone in a busy city centre. It took some time to get on the right path, but once he did, his progress was unwavering.

His first love was hockey, but he grew out of that. Next was baseball, where the towering teenager hoped to follow in the footsteps of Randy Johnson, the six-foot-10 Hall-of-Fame hurler who got his start with the Montreal Expos. Along the way, he had to be coaxed into giving basketball a try by one of his baseball buddies — given he was pushing seven feet tall, it didn’t take that much imagination.

He didn’t fully make the leap to basketball until he was in Grade 10, and he wasn’t an overnight success — he played on the ‘B’ team at IMG Academy in Florida in Grade 11. When he led Purdue to the Final Four last spring, he took some time to reflect on the college programs who wouldn’t give him a chance.

But Edey has never taken a backwards step. He went from a physical curiosity to an NBA lottery pick in seven years.

And those that saw him then believed they would eventually see what they are seeing now.

“I don’t know how or what people didn’t see,” says Vidal Massiah, the former Canadian national team star who introduced Edey to competitive basketball as part of his well-regarded Northern Kings club program, which will have 200 kids at the game Wednesday night.

“Nothing he’s done has surprised us. He’s smart, he works, he asks questions and he always had touch. He’s like one of the Monstars from Space Jam. That’s who he is. I think he’s going to be an All-Star.”

At this point, why put limits on him?

Edey arrives in his hometown playing some of the best basketball of his rookie season. He put up 16 points and counted 14 rebounds, three steals and a blocked shot in 25 minutes in the Grizzlies’ win over Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs on Monday night. The night before, Edey put up 14 points, 11 rebounds and dished three assists in 18 minutes in a win over the Milwaukee Bucks. One of the big question marks about Edey coming out of college was if he’d be able to shoot from the perimeter, given he only took two threes over four years at Purdue, making one. The signs are there: Edey is 14-of-39 as a pro, for 36 per cent, which is right at league average.

Overall, Edey has been one of the league’s most effective rookies, averaging 9.8 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.2 blocks on 58 per cent shooting in 21 minutes a game, with 29 starts in 36 appearances. Among players with at least 30 games played, Edey ranks fourth in offensive rebound percentage and ninth in blocked shot percentage. He’s coming home on a high.

Veteran Raptors big man Kelly Olynyk can relate to what Edey will likely be feeling on Wednesday night. He played the first NBA game of his career in Toronto as a rookie with the Boston Celtics.

“I’m sure he’ll have a lot of people here, it will be awesome for him,” said Olynyk. “He’s playing really well. They’ve carved out a nice role for him over there, I like how they’ve been using him and he’s continued to get better. Great kid, great family, happy for them and happy for Canada getting to see him play at home for once. 

Olynyk has clocked Edey’s improvement almost annually, playing with him on the national team in previous summers, but even he’s been impressed with the Grizzlies rookie’s progress from raw prospect to contributor on one the NBA’s best teams.

“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 the work and you don’t see that often from young guys these days,” said Olynyk. “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, 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 it’s a testament to him.”

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Perhaps more important for the moment is that Edey has earned the respect of his teammates as the Grizzlies — winners of three straight and nine of their last 10 — battle for second place in the Western Conference. He’s a big man who plays big.

He’s been in a couple of dust-ups already with noted agitator Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors already this season. In November, Green was assessed a flagrant foul for grabbing Edey’s ankle and tripping in him transition, though the flagrant was only assessed after Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins asked for it to be reviewed. This prompted Green to go on his podcast and call the Grizzlies head coach a ‘softie’ and that he was teaching Edey to be soft.

A month later, the Grizzlies beat the Warriors by 51.

“For sure,” Edey told reporters after that game when asked about Green’s comments. “When someone talks about you, you hear it. It was kind of something the whole team heard, and the whole team wanted to play for today.”

Edey and Green got into another altercation on Jan. 4 when the Warriors veteran was assessed another flagrant foul, this time for coming down hard on Edey’s shoulder after the Grizzlies big man outmuscled him for an offensive rebound. Edey followed up with a shove of Green, but didn’t get called for a foul. 

On Jan. 25, then-Utah Jazz centre Drew Eubanks got assessed a flagrant 2 foul for intentionally taking a running body check at Edey, not that Edey was bothered. It was Eubanks who bounced off the massive 22-year-old. After Eubanks was a little too aggressive setting a screen on Ja Morant, the Grizzlies star point guard, Edey made a point of asking Morant “is he bothering you.” Things escalated, but it was Eubanks who got tossed.

They are the kind of plays that teammates grow to respect. Morant shouted out Edey after the game for acting as the team’s “enforcer.”

Edey is certainly big enough for the job. Maybe he didn’t leave his hockey roots too far behind after all.

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