When Kassius Robertson decides to do something, he decides to excel at it. The 27 year-old Toronto native, playing professionally in the Spanish Liga ACB with Monbus Obradoiro, took his time committing to basketball. After playing all sports growing up in downtown Toronto, it wasn’t until the eighth grade that Robertson decided to give his heart to basketball, leaving soccer, baseball and games of ball hockey in the street in the rearview as he decided he wanted to get serious about the game.

“That eighth-grade summer, going into ninth grade is when I really was like, ‘Wow, I really, really like playing this game, and I wanted to be really good at it too,’” Robertson said. “I didn't just want to play just to have fun, even though it was super fun. The competition to me was attractive. That was, I think, what kept me going for sure.”

With a goal in mind, Robertson began to put in the work to see it to fruition. Enter Shane James, director of Canada Elite and assistant general manager of the CEBL Guelph Nighthawks. A decade ago, James was the founder of Triple Balance, the AAU team where Robertson began to develop his game during the summer months.

“If there’s any kid today, in my opinion, who wants to go to Division I, and you want to play at a high level, Shane James is the person you want to talk to, he’s the person you get involved with,” he said.

Robertson also began training with Kyle Julius. Though Julius is now coaching in Taiwan and serving as general manager of the CEBL’s Fraser Valley Bandits, when Robertson was just beginning his basketball journey, it was training sessions with the Julius-founded A-Game Hoops where Robertson first gained his confidence.

“I have to mention Kyle’s name every time I talk about my upbringing because he was probably the first trainer I ever went to,” Robertson said. “He was a guy that, at first, scared the shit out of me. The first day I met him, I was just super shy, kind of not confident in [myself] at all. I was tiny. You know, I didn't have a lot going for me in terms of talent and stuff like that.”

Learning how to train himself to become a better player on court, while also developing his mental toughness and self-discipline became a crucial part in Robertson’s journey. The 6-foot-3 shooting guard who now rises and lets the ball fly from deep effortlessly needed to grow into that confidence.

“[Kyle] kind of was the voice in my head a lot of times when I wasn't working with him, when I was by myself or when I was at school because he preaches hard work and grinding and outworking everybody around you,” Robertson said. “That really kind of got through to me because I knew I wanted to be good at basketball. I don’t just want to play, I don't want to go to the YMCA and mess around. I want to be one of the best. All I know is that I want to be good at the game. So he instilled that work ethic in me. He taught me how to train. He was super, super influential.”

Robertson is quick to shout out all of the coaches he’s played for along the way, mentioning Corey Niles, who coached him at Thornlea Secondary School during the ninth and 10th grades, as well as Gus Gymnopoulos, who had coached him at Vaughan Secondary School prior to playing at Thornlea, saying that their belief in his game allowed him to believe in his potential as well.

It was less than a decade ago that Robertson was in high school. Still, he can’t believe the growth of the game in Canada, or the attention that Canadian high schoolers are getting stateside today.

“The difference is absolutely nuts,” he said. “It makes me really proud. Don’t get me wrong, we absolutely had to grind to get in front of a Division I coach. Having one Division I coach in the gym was like having Jesus himself in the gym. Now guys are getting scholarships, and of course they work hard for them, and they’re good, but [these things] are available now.”

After four years at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, Robertson transferred to the University of Missouri for his senior season. When teammate Michael Porter Jr. was injured in the first game of the 2017-18 season, Robertson’s role expanded overnight. He made the most of the opportunity, averaging 16.3 points per game to lead the team in scoring while shooting 43 percent from beyond the arc.

Following his senior season at Missouri, Roberton’s eighth-grade basketball dream was realized when he signed with a pro team in Germany. After a season in Germany, he spent one season in Italy before landing with Monbus Obradoiro. He has enjoyed his time overseas, but navigating a professional career so far from home can be challenging, especially during a global pandemic.

In the early days of 2020, as COVID-19 began to spread across the globe, Robertson was playing in Bologna, Italy. He returned to Canada to play with the Senior Men’s National Team in Oshawa, Ontario, and ended up breaking his hand at the beginning of the game. After getting approval to remain in Canada for a few weeks to rehab, Robertson fully expected to be on a plane to Italy to finish out his pro season with his team. Two days after getting clearance from his team to remain in Toronto to begin rehabbing his injury, the Italian league was cancelled for the season due to Covid-19.

Robertson’s time in Italy had now come to an end, his apartment with all of his belongings remaining as he’d left them when he had boarded his flight to Canada, expecting to be home for just a week.

“I had brought all of the things that are really important to me,” he said. “My passport, my laptop, I brought my PS4, which, for an overseas player, is a lifeline. And then, yeah. I was off for the rest of that year. I mean, everybody was.”

When leagues began to restart, Robertson signed in Spain, joining up with Team Canada teammate Thomas Scrubb. In his fourth season playing professionally, the journey hasn’t been easy, but it has led to where eighth-grade Kassius wanted to be.

“I think it was a dream to go Division I, absolutely, that was the dream,” Robertson said. “Playing professionally, you almost have to go through Division I. Of course, some guys defied the odds. On my team right now, he went to Carleton, Tommy Scrubb, is a legend himself. But that's the thing, if you were going to play in Canada, you had to go to Carleton and be amazing, like Phil [Scrubb] and Tommy [Scrubb]. I wasn't even getting recruited by Carleton.”

In addition to playing overseas for eight months of the year, Robertson has also spent the past two summers playing for the CEBL’s Niagara River Lions. The opportunity to continue working on his game in the offseason while playing in front of family and friends at home has been welcomed by Robertson.

“Their format, in terms of like playing in the summer was really smart because they can get a lot of the really good Canadian players who were coming back and are in in town and available to play instead of doing it in the winter time when they're competing with NBA, NHL and all those players are not on home soil,” he said.  

Despite the busy schedule of playing professionally in both Spain and the CEBL, Robertson will always make time to play with the Senior Men’s National Team. In Canada’s most recent window, where the team advanced to the second round of the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers 2023, after going undefeated through four games of group play, Robertson travelled to the Dominican Republic alongside teammate Thomas Scrubb to represent Canada.

“I got back four days ago from the Dominican, and I’ve had such a good time,” he said. “It’s such a nice break to come back. I’m personal friends with 80 percent of the national team roster and the 20 percent that I don’t know as well, I get to hang out with them and get to know them as well.”

Time together with national team teammates is worth whatever travel plans or logistics needed to make it happen.

“It’s like going home,” Robertson said. “It’s like you’re with your brethren from the same city. We talk the same and laugh at the same stuff. We’re all up to date on the same kind of things. It’s literally like going home to your friends, whether we’re in the Dominican or whether we’re in Toronto. It’s amazing.”

Beyond just connecting with his teammates, Robertson also credits the coaching staff and their commitment to players, even when they’re separated by an ocean.

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“Our staff is incredible,” he said. “Our staff is loaded with talent. Meeting those guys and connecting with those basketball minds is a privilege for me. Being able to hit their phones any time, like Coach Bjorkgren and Coach Mitchell, I can’t tell you how much of an honour it was to meet David Blatt and sit down with him and talk basketball, talk life. It’s been awesome. Those guys I hope to be able to communicate with for the rest of my life.”Robertson grew up admiring the players representing Canada on the national team level. Getting to be one of those players today still hasn’t gotten old for him.

“I feel like the chemistry off the court is completely the reason why we do so well on the court as well, because we're so unselfish,” Robertson said. “It's so fun to play with guys like that. We're all just trying to have some fun and, for me, you get to kind of reconnect with basketball the way you played it as a kid.”

Part of the reason why the team plays such unselfish basketball is that everyone on the roster understands what they are playing for.

“Going to the windows [with Canada Basketball] is not about me,” Robertson said. “It’s not about showcasing my game. It’s about winning the game.”