The early benefits to having Steve Nash in charge of the senior men's national basketball team became abundantly clear last week in Toronto. With the long-expected return of head coach Jay Triano on Thursday and a subsequent players' camp with close to 30 of the country's best, Canada - the nation that historically has had to pull teeth to get its best basketball players in one room together - planted some very important seeds at the Air Canada Centre.

TORONTO - Two summers ago, J.J. Redick was turning 30 and coming off another back injury that cost him 47 games in his first season with the Los Angeles Clippers. He figured it was a good time to talk to somebody who'd been there before, so he set up a meeting with Steve Nash. "The emphasis for me was just kind of picking his brain about how he maintained (his) level of play well into his 30s," Redick told theScore during All-Star weekend.

TORONTO - When you enter the visiting team's dressing room at Toronto's Air Canada Centre, there are two lockers on either side of the door. These tend to be reserved for the visiting NBA club's stars, and/or established veterans. Notable seasoned pros to have used them over the years include Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, and LeBron James.

ST. CATHARINES, Ontario - Alaska is no stranger to producing talented basketball players. Names like Mario Chalmers and Carlos Boozer came out of the southern part of the state once upon a time, but Kamaka Hepa's background is a little different. Hepa was born and raised on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in Barrow, Alaska - the northernmost community in the United States. For a point of reference, it is closer to Russia than it is to the state capital and Boozer's hometown of Juneau.

Welcome to the Pound the Rock podcast. On this bonus episode, William and Joseph dial up John Chick in Las Vegas to get some insight into Summer League:

LAS VEGAS - Chicago Bulls general manager Gar Forman has heard the criticism his team is receiving for matching guard Zach LaVine's four-year, $78-million offer sheet from the Sacramento Kings, but he's unperturbed by it.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - As his NBA career winds down, much has been made of Vince Carter’s impact on Canadian basketball. But to the newest generation of blue-chip talent from the north, that’s old-man stuff.

LAS VEGAS - Certain cities have particular smells. The aroma of Las Vegas is one of air conditioning, perfume, and cigarettes.

CBC News Network's Andrew Nichols speaks with John Chick, NBA News Editor for theScore, about the shoving incident with Kyle Lowry, the health of the Golden State Warriors and what it will take for the Raptors to win the series.

SAN ANTONIO - It's a fool's errand to try and gauge the feeling of FOMO in someone else's mind. Yet DeMar DeRozan was such a key member of the Toronto Raptors for so long - and the main outgoing trade chip that delivered Kawhi Leonard from San Antonio - that it's difficult not to think about what'll be going through his mind when he looks up at the NBA championship banner that now resides at Scotiabank Arena on Sunday. DeRozan returns to Toronto for the second time in a Spurs uniform this weeke

Early in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 NBA season, Raptors sophomore Alvin Williams and rookie Vince Carter took a stroll through Eaton Centre, always and forever a magnet for Toronto's youth. "I remember just walking through the mall with Vince and no one knew who he was," Williams told theScore.

Thirty-five years ago this Tuesday, on June 23, 1985, a bomb in a suitcase exploded in a cargo area at Narita International Airport, outside Tokyo. The blast effectively cut one of two Japanese luggage handlers in half at his torso, and killed both instantly. Fifty-five minutes later, almost 10,000 kilometres away, a second bomb went off, this one in the cargo hold of an Air India Boeing 747, flying off the coast of Ireland.