After a most promising start which saw the Rattlers win five of their first seven games, the team went on a monumental slide and mid-season roster make-over following an exodus of top players due to different reasons.
The Saskatchewan Rattlers will be back next season, and beyond, vows team president Lee Genier.
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Genier said during a year-end media conference inside a team locker room at Merlis Belsher Place.
“People keep asking me, ‘Is the team going to be here?’ I’ve heard that question. Of course, it’s going to be here. It’s going to be here forever, as far as that goes. I want to quash those rumours. I’ve heard a few this year and I want to reassure our fans and the media that the team is not going anywhere but up.”
After a most promising start — which saw the Rattlers win five of their first seven games — the team went on a monumental slide and mid-season roster make-over.
The Rattlers had chances to win most of those games but were often blowing leads and running out of steam in the final quarter.
“We had a really exciting start to the season,” assessed Genier. “We came out and we were 5-and-2. I look at where we went. If somebody would have said, when we were 5-and-2, that we end at 6-and-14, I wouldn’t have believed them.
“We were very competitive — obviously we had some challenges in our roster, with some roster moves and some big roster moves. We ended up losing four players in a matter of two-three days. In this league, it’s really hard to recover from that, just bringing in new players. (GM) Barry Rawlyk will attest to that. We did our best and we did make some pretty significant moves pretty quickly. Again, it didn’t necessarily melt into the way we wanted to, from a competitive standpoint.”
“Making the playoffs is obviously huge for any team,” said Genier. “We refer back to starting so well. I think it was very disappointing for us, in that respect. It came down to the last couple of games and we just didn’t have the horses. While it was disappointing on the court, we were very competitive in a lot of those games. Just hearing from the fans it was how exciting games were.
“You saw some games that were pretty epic in our season: coming back from a 27-point deficit, fans were able to really grasp that and hold on to that; Jalen Harris setting a new league record (for most points in a single CEBL game); those kind of things that happened within our building and other new records being set as well.
“I really try to accentuate the positives, that we are growing dramatically. We grew dramatically this year, which was very exciting, and we look to continue to grow exponentially next year.
“In some categories, we grew a 109 per cent. Overall, we were probably up 37-40 per cent on our attendance. In different markets, you look at Winnipeg and Winnipeg certainly led the league. I think they ended up with 86,000 fans for a season, in total. We would be somewhere in the 22,000-25,000 for the season where, again, we’ll look to be in the 40,000s to 50,000’s next year. That’s a realistic goal and that’s where need to grow.
“I look at Calgary and what they did in their initial game with 12,000 as a season-opener. You look at Edmonton (earlier this week Monday). They had a record sell-out of 5,300. We will continue to push our boundaries of growing. I’m pretty excited about that and I’m very excited about where our league is growing. It is going to continue to grow and expand as well.”
Genier says, win or loss, that Rattler fans left games “very excited” and the team had a record season for attendance.
“The growth of our fan base, and our corporate sponsors, everything grew dramatically and, as we head into 2025, we’ve already started our 2025 renewals and we’re on pace for a new record season,” noted Genier.
“We’ve had a really strong business year and we’re looking to continue that. On the basketball side, Barry and I will sit down and some of those meetings have already started. We want to get through (CEBL) Championship weekend because there are a series of meetings from our league perspective — president’s meetings, GM meetings, coaches meetings and look ahead to 2025 with the addition of four extra games next year, which is really exciting.
“That, again, just emphasizes the growth of our league.”
Possible sale of team in the future?
Unlike most other CEBL teams, the Rattlers are not privately owned.
Canadian Basketball Ventures, an off-shoot of the CEBL, owns and operates the team for now.
But the goal is to eventually hand over the reins to a private owner or group of owners in Saskatchewan.
“One of things that was tasked to me when I came back was trying to turn this franchise around, from a financial perspective,” explained Genier. “There’s always ongoing interest, which is good because we are owned by Canadian Basketball Ventures, which is a separate entity from the league. Right now, I’d say we are a hot commodity, which is not indicative of our record but we are excited from a corporate standpoint and the deeper roots we made in the corporate world. All of a sudden, we’ve had numerous calls as to what it would take to own the team. It’s getting past this season, putting us out there in the best light, from a corporate standpoint and a fan standpoint. We’ll have some more in-depth conversations as we go past the season.”
GM Rawlyk: ‘Expect the unexpected’
This week, the Rattlers concluded their exit meetings, having met with all the players, the coaching staff and with team GM Rawlyk and Genier, the team president.
“Kind of a de-brief on the season and just some preliminary talks on what’s going forward and what that’s going to look like,” noted Rawlyk, who added the title of vice-president of operations this past season to his ongoing role as GM.
“The exit meetings are basically to get feedback from them. I can certainly have my ideas about what went right and what went wrong over the course of the season, but the purpose of the exit meetings is to get a 360 (degree) view of it. Rather than feed down my ideas, I want to hear what they have to say and certainly the assistant coaches and Larry himself. It’s important that we get their perspective on things, just to get a better grasp and confirm. It’s very affirming to hear what they have to say.”
Given the transient nature of the league, the Rattlers have had trouble retaining top players for the entire season.
“If you look around the league, it’s partly the nature of the league,” said Rawlyk. “There are different opportunities with players coming and going. You obviously want to attract the highest quality of player that you possibly can. You need to have a level of talent to win in this league. The question then becomes how do you retain those guys? There are going to be things that are going to be out of your control and then there are going to be things that you can control. Particularly with the Canadian players, we’ve been trying to build a synergy with those guys and I think I have to salute Lee and the staff and the community, in general, for just the way they’ve embraced those players. They’ve given them a very positive experience. I know, in the exit meetings, we’ve had very positive comments from all the players about the experience they’ve had here off the court and with the sort of coaching they’ve received.”
On the one hand, you want to attract top-notch talent to win and you want to develop players. On the other hand, you also want to keep players for the entire season.
“You need enough talent in order to be successful,” agreed Rawlyk. “To win a horse race, you have to have the horses. So it’s important that you get players that will be able to produce at a high level, but, at the same time, you talk about team chemistry and it’s kind of a cliché thing but you have to have chemistry and togetherness. I guess when you have guys coming and going, players that could be potentially leaving for another situation, it kind of de-stabilizes a little bit what you’re trying to do in terms of team chemistry.”
The Rattlers may be at a disadvantage in terms of local talent compared to the bigger markets but Saskatoon and the province have other things to offer prospective players.
“I think that’s a fundamental thing we have to do, recognizing that Saskatoon’s a little bit of a different market than most of the teams,” continued Rawlyk. “We’re relatively isolated, just in terms of the talent base. I don’t think we have, at this point of time, and, hopefully going forward, as basketball continues to develop in this province, we’re going to have to start to develop a more local base of talent that most teams have at this point of time. You take a look around the rosters around the league and a lot of those teams are fortunate enough to stock themselves with some local players that are coming home for the summer and they can stay at home and play.”
Given the number of mid-season departures, how frustrating was it to overhaul and rebuild the team’s roster at midseason?
“That’s one of those things that you have to be prepared for in this league,” replied Rawlyk. “There’s going to be some transition. The frustrating part about it for us is that they all kind of converged at one point of time. It was basically within three or four days where we lost basically 80 per cent of our scoring. It’s never going to be a level playing field in this league. There are always new nuances to every team and every franchise. Really, at the end of the day, you’ve got to play the cards that you’re dealt. That’s what it really is. Unfortunately, I probably didn’t do the best job I possibly could, or needed to do, in order for us to overcome that convergence of transition in our roster. That’s just the reality of the situation. We had a lot of change in a very short period of time.
“Lee and I have talked about this quite a bit and I’ve talked about this with him in detail about how we can structure some contracts so we can have players here for the tenure of the season. We think there’s a way forward with that and we’re going to try and nuance that a little bit and try to work out some details with that, but we think that’s a real important part of trying to avoid a situation like we had this year where we had a really strong start to the season — we thought we had a really good core of players, and things were all going in the right direction — and then, at the mid-season point, where we just had that massive exodus. It was just really hard to recover from.”
Part of the picture would be incentives for players to stay for the whole season and “recognizing that you’re weighing that against opportunities they may have to go to the (NBA) Summer League,” added Rawlyk.
“The Summer League’s kind of taken on a life of its own the last couple of years. There seems to be a great deal of energy and excitement around players going there and it’s perceived to be productive to their careers and, in some cases, it obviously is. I can cite a guy like Elijah Harkless this year. Him going to the Summer League, that was a productive thing in terms of his career. He was able to sign a contract. On the other hand, there’s a lot of players who go and, I hate to say it, but it’s kind of more about the hype than the reality of advancing your basketball career.”
What was Rawlyk learned from this job?
“Expect the unexpected — I guess I can say that. There are always going to be things that come along. You put plans in place to try and mitigate some of those things. There’s always a chance that players are going to leave for the (NBA) Summer League or they’re going to be offered a contract elsewhere or injuries or whatever else might come your way. You need to be prepared for those things. People don’t see that but there’s always groundwork being made behind that. You always have a back-up plan to fall back on and another back-up plan to fall back on. Sometimes you need more back-up plans than you have, so I guess, if I’ve learned anything, there are two things in it: you want to try and mitigate that turnover of players leaving for other reasons by incentivizing them to stay and just have a deeper pool of guys that we could call on when those events do arise.”
Rawlyk says the fate of coach Larry Abney has yet to be decided
“We have not talked about that, whatsoever, at this point of time. The exit meeting with him was based on feedback from the players and his feedback. Larry told me that he experienced some significant growth this year as a coach and that was one of his objectives in coming here, to further his coaching career. That was accomplished. In the coming months, Lee and I are going to have some serious discussions about things and I don’t really know what Larry’s plans are. He may have some other plans and ambitions and opportunities that come along, so, in the coming months, we’ll have a better grip on that.”
Coach Larry Abney: ‘Something yet to prove’
Abney joined the Rattlers on loan from the NBA G League Clippers. It was his first time as a head coach and a learning experience.
“Ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys, highs and lows,” assessed Abney. “Lots of personal growth. Obviously, we didn’t achieve every goal we set out to do, so that’s disappointing.”
As for the huge turnover of players mid-season?
“It was unbelievable,” admitted Abney. “Obviously, it was my first year coaching (in the CEBL). That definitely wasn’t part of the plan. From the moment from when Barry reached out, I was super excited about the opportunity to come up here and cut my teeth as a head coach and I planned for it. I planned hard for it. We were on the phone pretty much every day, talking about players we wanted, talking about players we couldn’t have, talking about players we almost had. My wife knew when Barry was calling before I did. However, I don’t know if any experience would have prepared me for this. But, now, I can say I’ve done it. Now I can say I have that experience.
“Losing those guys, the way we did, was super unfortunate for our team, for the city obviously with the losses racking up. However, there was something to be had. There were guys who, earlier in the season, they were coming and asking ‘how can I get on the court more? How can I contribute more?’ A lot of the guys got that opportunity and a lot of the guys proved well from it and grew from it.”
What was the turning point of the season, if there was one?
“I can’t point to a specific game because, obviously, I’ve lost a lot of sleep over it but I would say the Winnipeg loss is probably one of those points where, if we win that game, does something change regardless of who left?” replied Abney. “One or two more wins because of morale. That took a lot out of us. However, losing Grant, Bryson, E.J., Jalen and even Calloo, who was playing really, really, really well for us at the time, that was totally unexpected but we tried to re-group from it and make the best of it.”
Abney said he had two big goals coming into the season: One was to make the playoffs and, two, make sure the players left as better players.
“Those were the two things that were most important to me. Obviously, one wasn’t achieved but I thoroughly feel, and by talking to the players and seeing it myself, the second one was achieved and that’s something definitely that I can lay my hat on. We talked about myself coming in as a player development coach. I feel like I built a culture around our team that they’ll be able to take with them wherever they may go, whether they come back here or into a 10-month season (starting in the fall) and I can be proud of that, for sure.”
What did he learn?
“Adapting on the fly. I stayed up many, many nights, along with my coaching staff. We stayed on the phone all night. We had late meetings, like, what can we do to overcome? We went through that seven-game spiral. Two-three games in, the all-nighters started, like ‘how do we fix this? How do we turn this around? How do we utilize what we have?’ Again, having to make those changes on the fly and teach new players. You can’t keep these guys in the gym for three-four hours but we’ve got to teach these guys a whole new group of core players, not guys who are coming in for 10 minutes (of playing time). We’re talking about guys coming in to play 25-plus minutes to tell them exactly what we’re trying to accomplish as a team and not individually. It was a matter of trying to teach and not tell in a short period of time and also garnering wins from it. So many ‘almost’ games. I think, maybe, with a little more experience as a head coach, I could have taken some of those games we were close in and turn them into wins. I would definitely want to see growth from that and I’ll see that growth when I coach again.”
The roster make-over was sure to affect team chemistry and disrupted roles.
All things being equal, would he return to the Rattlers?
“I’d definitely be open to it, for sure. I mean, this is a great experience. Obviously we talked about not achieving the goal of making the playoffs or being a team that was in it for the long haul. I would definitely come back and prove myself. Not just to myself but to the city as well. It’s not exactly a promise that I made to them out loud but I made that promise to myself and it definitely hurt a lot not to achieve it. I’m not exactly sure what the future holds for me and what the Rattlers plan to do. However, it’s definitely a conversation to be had.”
Captain Anthony Tsegakele: From bench to team leader
Following the mid-season roster changes, Anthony Tsegakele took on a new role as a veteran leader in his fourth season in the CEBL and third in Saskatchewan “trying to make sure that guys enjoyed their stint in Saskatchewan because I feel like Saskatoon is definitely a slept-on city, slept-on market, slept-on team.”
“Whenever we have guys coming in, I feel like I almost take that role of trying to make sure that they know that, here, you’re taken care of, and, especially when we’re winning, the fans rally behind you and it’s a market that a lot of guys would want to play in,” said Tsegakele.
“I think everybody would feel the same way. It’s obviously been a tough season, ups and downs, roster changes, close losses, having a really good start and, after that, having to find a way to try and battle and make a push. I feel like we had a chance, almost, until the end. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to accomplish our goal, which was to make it to the playoffs and make it to the championship weekend and win a championship. There were definitely a couple of positives we can take away from the season.”
Biggest challenges they faced?
“Roster changes, that’s going to happen. I don’t think it’s something we can pinpoint and say, ‘that’s the reason why we didn’t have success.’ We had a young group and having a pretty big roster change compared to the year before, and guys being in their first year and guys trying how to figure out how to win, I feel like we didn’t really do a good job of that. There’s a multitude of things that we can point at. For me, I think that’s the biggest thing: figuring out how to win in Elam(target score ending); being up, being down, figuring out how to get those extra stops and getting those extra possessions that you need to win a ball game. I feel like we just didn’t do a really good job of that.
“It’s a collective thing, from guy No. 12 (on the roster) to the head of the snake. I just feel like, as a group, we just didn’t do a really good job of that. I feel like we have to look at it as a learning curve … I feel like everyone has something they can take away from the season and try and move forward and try and make yourself ready for next season.”
Tsegakele says he enjoyed working with coach Abney.
“It was definitely a pleasure this year having a players’ coach like that, having the experience that he’s had (as a player himself). He was really much a players coach and he was super easy to talk to and, with him being on the younger side, we had things that we could relate and he was also a player. He has so much experience and guys could draw from that. I feel like I did a pretty good job of having those conversations with him.”
Tsegakele says coach Abney and the players could have easily thrown in the towel but still had a game plan and hunger to win.
“Obviously it’s tough, especially with how we lost games. It’s not like we were getting blown out by 30 every game or, from the beginning of the game throughout and we were never in it. A lot of those games, we were up (leading). We were right there, even with some of the best teams in the league. Obviously, with having such a young group, it was challenging but, trying to bring energy at practice, trying to talk with guys and encourage guys and do as much stuff together as we can, whether it’s watching film together or just playing cards in my apartment. I just feel like little stuff like that goes a long way and I hope that guys feel like I did my best to lead them and keep their spirits high, whether it’s a little talk before practice or a speech (in the locker room), I feel like I try to my best to keep their spirits. Obviously it was tough but I hope the guys enjoyed my leadership this year.”
Tsegakele says the Rattlers fan support has been “unbelievable,” especially given how the season went.
“They were always there for us. You go to McDonalds to get some good or Wal-Mart to get some groceries, the fans are always, like, ‘we believe in you guys” or with DM’s on Instagram, ‘Oh, man, a tough loss, but keep it up.’ It’s kind of crazy, when you think of it, that we lost seven (straight) and we finished the season 1-and-12 (in the last 13) and to still be coming out to games. Even the last home game, it was probably the loudest it had been all year and they were still there, supporting us. I feel like Saskatoon is definitely a slept-on market. The last game, I think that a lot of guys were surprised with the turnout and how loud it was. Cody, at some point, hit those three three’s in a row and they were chanting his name and stuff. I was a part of the (Rattlers) team that we went to the quarter-finals. I always tell people and always tell the guys that, in that year, almost every game was loud and rocking in there (SaskTel Centre). I wish the guys would have got to experience that, but the fans stayed with us throughout the beginning of the year to tough times. We have nothing but love for them.”
Tsegakele says the “hunger’s still there” to win a CEBL championship.
“My first year here, we were 12-and-8. Once you get that feeling of what winning feels like, a feeling of knowing you’re one of the better teams in the West and one of the best teams in the league, you want that every single year.
“Even though Saskatoon is looked on as a smaller market, I feel like we’ve got good leadership, good coaching and we can do it. Definitely the hunger’s still there and we have to make sure we get back to that.
“The goal, every year, is to bring that championship back to Saskatoon.”
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