Quiet architect of Canadian basketball’s next chapter

Dave Sewell is building a pipeline to the pros from London, Ontario — as Canada stakes its claim on the NBA

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This year’s NBA Finals has featured four Canadians. With nary a tariff in sight.

Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, fresh off an MVP season and scoring title, ran for the Thunder offense alongside Luguentz Dort, one of the league’s most ferocious perimeter defenders. For the Indiana Pacers, third-year guards Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard carry their breakout postseasons one step further.

It marks the second consecutive year four Canadians have appeared in the Finals.

From youth camps to age-group teams to Olympic qualifiers, the Northern pipeline is real. But pipelines don’t just emerge in Toronto or Montreal. Sometimes, they start in quiet gyms in London, Ontario — where coaches like Dave Sewell are doing the kind of daily, unglamorous work that makes Canadian basketball’s boom sustainable.

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Walk into Western University’s gym on a weekday morning in June and you might catch a glimpse of the next breakout Canadian. Malcolm Christie, who just transferred from Oakland University to Oregon State, might be running pick-and-rolls. Adam Olsen, a 6-foot-8 shooter from UBC on his way to South Alabama, could be putting up 1,000 shots. Western Illinois Leathernecks guard Marko Maletic, a pro prospect weighing, might be stretching courtside.

Overseeing it all is Sewell, a former player turned coach turned mentor-manager. For players in between stages – U SPORTS to NCAA, prep school to pro – Sewell offers clarity. He’s part trainer, part strategist, part confidant. No one in his gym is there by accident.

“It takes a lot for me to think someone can play at the highest level. I’m picky. But if I see it – if I really see it – I’m all in. I don’t work with just anyone. There has to be something there, something real.”

He doesn’t like the term skills coach. “I’m not a guru,” he said. “I’m just a guy who likes the game and likes helping people get better.”

That humility belies his resume. When Shaedon Sharpe needed reps before his pro day in Chicago, he came to Sewell who got him ready for the biggest workout of his life. Sharpe eventually went seventh overall in the 2022 NBA Draft.

“The first time I saw Shaedon, I thought, ‘Holy shit,’” Sewell said. “You just knew.”

But just as often, it’s players like Olsen who come through – guys with talent, overlooked by the system. Olsen sent 300 emails to D1 programs out of high school. None replied. Sewell saw film, saw potential, and brought him to London.

“I already had the shot,” Olsen said. “But being here, working like a pro, being treated like one – it has made the difference.”

This fall, Olsen heads to the Sun Belt Conference as one of South Alabama’s key recruits. And it started with an invitation.

For players like Olsen, Sewell stands ready to help.

“These guys aren’t just showing up to get shots up. We’ve got a schedule every night – meals, naps, treatment, lifts, court time. Everything is planned out. It’s like being a pro without the paycheck,” he said. “That structure, that rhythm, it matters when you’re trying to make a leap.”

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What separates Sewell from most development coaches is how fully he embraces the new world: transfer portals, NIL deals, positionless play.

The advent of NIL – ‘name, image, likeness’ – has radically reshaped the landscape of college athletics, especially basketball, where top players can now earn six-figure deals without ever leaving campus. Once a gray-market economy, the system is now a legitimate revenue stream that empowers players and complicates decisions for both families and programs.

That’s proven to be a challenge north of the border. No longer a quiet stepping stone for overlooked players, Canadian university basketball is now squarely in the sights of NCAA recruiters. For coaches, that’s both a compliment and a crisis.

In recent years, top USPORTS players have begun transferring en masse to Division I programs, chasing NIL money, better exposure and the dream of pro basketball. It’s a sign of the times, Sewell says.

“These kids are proving they can play. They’re leaving Canadian schools and making noise right away in The States. That says something.”

But for Canadian postsecondary coaches, the talent drain has made team-building nearly impossible. The Western Mustangs, for instance, lost two of their best players in back-to-back years. Both landed NCAA offers and NIL deals.

“Before, you could count on keeping a kid for four or five years. Now, if he breaks out as a freshman, he’s probably gone,” Sewell said. “That’s just the new way.”

For the players, it’s opportunity. For the programs, it’s attrition. And while some schools may learn to sell their success stories as recruiting tools – “Come here and we’ll get you to D1” – the long-term impact is unclear.

“It’s hard to build a program when your best players are always halfway out the door,” Sewell said. “But you can’t blame the kids. If the chance is there, they should take it.”

For Canadian athletes, NIL is also a double-edged sword: the opportunity to earn meaningful income while pursuing an education in the United States, but also an ecosystem filled with agents, advisors, and financial pressure they’ve often had little preparation for.

That’s where someone like Sewell has quietly stepped in.

He’s not a licensed agent, and he’s the first to say he doesn’t want to be one. But he’s negotiated deals for players, helping them secure NIL money without surrendering a massive cut to outside representation.

“I’m not an agent, and I don’t pretend to be. But if I can help a kid avoid paying someone 20% to send a few emails, I’ll do that. We figure it out together, and if he wants to break me off something afterward, great.”

His approach is grounded in trust, not transactions – a rarity in an increasingly transactional world. For his players, NIL is no longer an abstraction. It’s part of the game plan.

“I just want to make sure the kids aren’t getting taken advantage of.”

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While Canada Basketball deserves credit for the rise of players like SGA, Dort, Mathurin, and Nembhard, it also takes guys like Sewell, working outside the spotlight, to build a national reputation.

He's done that for years: At Beal Secondary. With the London Lightning. With Western and Fanshawe College. And, informally, with a handful of players every summer, each chasing their next step.

“We’re making strides as a national game, but there are still players that get overlooked. That’s where I come in. We keep them in the game, give them a bridge, give them time. It’s a different world now, but you either adjust or get left behind.”

Sewell has spent time on both sides of the coaching spectrum – the clipboard-on-the-bench, the hands-on, day-in-day-out trainer. Ask him which he prefers, and he won’t pick.

“Game coaching is about adjustments, matchups, managing moments,” he said. “This is different. This is about building something from the ground up. One is strategy in the moment; one is about conversation over a long time. Both keep me in the game I love.”

Trainer coaching, as he describes it, is the quiet work – reps, rhythm, recovery. It’s writing schedules, setting up physio appointments, arranging late-night gym runs. There are no crowds, no refs, no wins or losses. Just progress.

What makes this form of coaching special for him isn’t just the skill development. It’s the trust. The unglamorous parts: helping a kid find his confidence, giving him a real plan, making sure his day has purpose.

“It’s fun watching them improve. Especially when you’ve got guys with real skill, guys who can really shoot. It’s just fun basketball every day. When you love the game like I do, that’s all you really want.”