Olynyk, born in Toronto but raised in Kamloops, B.C., was the captain of Canada’s bronze-medal winning team at the FIBA World Cup this past fall and is part of its core of players that have committed to playing at the Paris Olympics in July.
Olynyk wants the current men’s senior team to inspire a whole new generation of players to even greater heights.
Your hopes, dreams, wishes are that somebody looking up to you is going to be better than you one day and take this thing further than you could ever have dreamed,” said Olynyk after Utah’s morning shootaround Saturday at Scotiabank Arena. “Time will tell if that happens.
“I think there’s a lot of people that look up to you, you inspire them, have aspirations to do, whatever it may be, whether it’s basketball or not, and that’s a big thing to represent.”
Olynyk comes from a basketball family.
His father Ken was the Canadian junior team’s coach from 1983 to 1996 and then became the athletic director at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. His mother Arlene was a women’s basketball referee at the Canadian collegiate level before working for the Raptors from 1995 to 2004 as the first female scorekeeper in the NBA.
Sister Jesse competed in rugby and wrestling, but his youngest sister, Maya, played basketball for the University of Saskatchewan Huskies.