Mention the name Nate Mitchell to just about anyone connected with high-level basketball in Toronto and eyes light up, knowing glances are exchanged and it’s as if some super secret code words have been spoken.
As they say, if you know, you know.
And everyone who’s anyone in the game around here knows about the unpretentious 36-year-old Toronto native who has been an instrumental part in the development of a bevy of great Canadian players.
“I’m not a Toronto person but I have been around the national teams and he’s had an impact on damn near every player that’s been in the program, young or old,” Scott Morrison, a former Boston Celtics assistant and a Canadian program mainstay from Prince Edward Island, said this week.