Vancouver is where he was born, but the Kitsilano Community Centre was home for Ryan Sidhoo.

“Growing up, I never really felt at home in the culture of Vancouver. It wasn’t really diverse,” said the 29-year-old filmmaker.

“But basketball … it brought different walks of life together. The community basketball always felt like home, playing in Mel Davis’s Kitsilano Youth Basketball League. Having Mel, and having the KYB, was so eye-opening as a kid, because, ‘Oh, there’s other people who love basketball.’

“You got to meet a lot of different people, and it was united. That was so cool, and something I always looked forward to as a kid, was playing in Mel’s league.”

Growing up in Kits as the son of an Indian immigrant father and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother, the Lord Byng graduate always felt out-of-sync with his birth city. But his love for the game shines through in his latest project, the nine-part docuseries True North, which goes inside the rising wave of hoop talent coming from Toronto, following five teenagers with aspirations of reaching the NCAA and beyond.

The group includes 13-year-old Elijah Fisher and Malachi Ndur, the son of former NHL player Rumun Ndur, the first Nigerian-born player to play in the NHL.

“It’s been really humbling, because basketball is such a personal sport for me,” Sidhoo said from the Ukrainian city of Kiev this week, where he was travelling and, yes, playing pickup basketball.

“I wanted to make this project stand out, and try to keep it as true to what these kind of families were going through, and the emotions that exist as they try to navigate this basketball machine.”

When Team Canada took on the Dominican Republic Friday night in their FIBA World Cup qualifier in Toronto, eight of the 12 players on the roster were from the GTA, including NBAers Dillon Brooks and Cory Joseph, and next year’s projected No. 1 pick, R.J. Barrett.

New York might be synonymous with basketball, an epochal kingdom home to legends of past and present and the unquestionable Mesopotamia of the hardwood, but Toronto has surpassed it.

“I spoke to Bob Hurley Sr., and coach was like, ‘Phil, within the last five years, Toronto has produced more talent than New York City. What are you feeding all those guys?’” legendary Canadian basketball figure Phil (Dr. Dix) Dixon says in the first episode.

Sidhoo remembers when Vancouver and Toronto were added to the NBA family as expansion cities in 1995, but the paths their two franchises took diverged quickly, with the Grizz lasting just six years before relocating to Memphis.

Looking back, he can understand why one team succeeded while the other failed.

“The (Vancouver) team just wasn’t that exciting. I liked Shareef (Abdur-Rahim’s) game, but for the general basketball fan who’s not familiar with the game, it’s not something to get excited about. You’re going to pay money to see Shaq, Michael Jordan, Penny (Hardaway) or Grant Hill … but in Toronto, they had the benefit of really electric players, like Mighty Mouse (Damon Stoudamire),” he said.

“If you didn’t know anything about basketball, you would pay to go see some 5-foot-10 guy dominate. And then you have Vince (Carter), the most electrifying dunker of all time. To win a city over, you needed that. No disrespect to those other guys on the Grizzlies, but they just weren’t highlight-reel players.”

True North also takes a look at the billion-dollar business of AAU basketball, the club route that nearly every player with a dream of playing in the United States takes. The circuit of tournaments has morphed from a developmental tool to a money- and hype-driven showcase that values highlights and viral videos over skill, with the main aim being exposure, not player development.

“AAU basketball is not beautiful 5-on-5, screen-and-roll and ball movement, it’s very individualistic,” said Sidhoo. “Because there’s so much at stake now with youth basketball, it’s made the ecosystem a little chaotic.

“Some of these kids are two or three years from being a global icon, having shoe contracts, endorsing products … Because of that … it can jeopardize the integrity of the decisions being made. It’s made people lose perspective about why they’re doing it. Things happen when there’s monetary implications — and big ones — that can shift things really quick.

“That word, ‘exposure,’ has gotten out of control,” he added. “Yes, there are certain legitimate events … but then there are opportunists who have created these cottage industries off of these events. It’s tough for parents to decipher what’s legit and what’s not.

“How do you deal with all of that? I hope that’s what this series brings to light. Essentially, trying to find the best methods for exposure for these kids, in a way that doesn’t compromise their integrity or take them down a path that they can’t come back from.”

jadams@postmedia.com

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode Four

Episode Five

Episode Six

Episode Seven

Episode Eight

Episode Nine

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