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Various high-level Canadian basketball players have declined to play for the senior men’s national team for a variety of reasons over the years, some fully valid and understandable, others simply choices they made and live with.

Basketball doesn’t have anywhere close to the prestige or the funding of hockey in this country, so you won’t find each and every person lining up no matter what, but there still are a lot of elite players who jump at answering the call.

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Like Kelly Olynyk, who was born in Toronto and grew up there and in Kamloops, B.C., before going on to Gonzaga and then a solid NBA career so far with Boston and Miami.

Olynyk’s international resume includes stints with Canadian teams from 2008-2011 as well as the 2015 Rio Olympic qualifiers and he would have been there in 2016 too if he hadn’t undergone surgery.

Why does he keep coming back as often as possible, we asked?

“I love the game of basketball, I love my country. Simple as that,” Olynyk said earlier this week at Ryerson’s Mattamy Centre in downtown Toronto.