Gilgeous-Alexander’s NBA crown could spark Canada basketball’s next boom

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, centre, holds up the MVP trophy as he celebrates with his team after they won the NBA basketball championship with a Game 7 victory against the Indiana Pacers Sunday, June 22, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Like many Canadians, Michael Bartlett watched Game 7 of the NBA Finals with bated breath. But as Canada Basketball’s president and CEO, he had a unique rooting interest, with players on both teams.

Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Montreal’s Luguentz Dort helped the Oklahoma City Thunder capture their first-ever championship, defeating Andrew Nembhard of Aurora, Ont., and Montreal’s Bennedict Mathurin of the Indiana Pacers. Bartlett said he was thrilled for all four Canadians, no matter who came out on top.

“Oh, it was uncontrollable at times,” said Bartlett in a phone interview on Monday morning. “I looked up, it was 4:50 left on the clock in Game 7 last night, and four Canadians are on the court playing meaningful minutes in crunch time with the ball in their hands. Gosh, that’s exciting.

“There’s nothing better than seeing people you care about, truly care about, and they care about you, shine when they have the opportunity to shine.”

Bartlett said all of Canada Basketball’s staff were exchanging texts throughout the climactic game, which Oklahoma City ultimately won 103-91. Gilgeous-Alexander and Dort are the 11th and 12th Canadians to win an NBA title, and Bartlett believes the experience gained by all four players will benefit Canada’s senior men’s team.

“They’re learning how to win on the toughest of stages, which you also can’t help but draw a connection to when we’re in a tough situation, a game on the line, winner goes home,” he said.

Gilgeous-Alexander, in particular, will be a key to Canada’s future success.

He became the fourth player in league history to win the scoring title, MVP, NBA championship and Finals MVP in the same season, joining Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O’Neal.

Rowan Barrett, the general manager of Canada’s men’s senior basketball team, said Gilgeous-Alexander’s experience in the post-season will help him in international competition because, through each round of the playoffs, he faced the opposing team’s toughest defenders.

“It’s got to help your national team at some point when he’s back in the fold playing,” said Barrett. “Those experiences, the pressure, the different ways they try to guard him, the different ways you’ve got to bring your teammates along while balancing attacking the defence every possession, all those things, I think are going to help him.

“I think it will help the other players that were playing in the Finals as well.”

Gilgeous-Alexander was selected 11th overall by the Charlotte Hornets in the 2018 NBA Draft but was traded the same day to the Los Angeles Clippers. After one season in L.A., he was sent to Oklahoma City in a blockbuster deal that brought all-star guard Paul George to the Clippers.

TSN basketball commentator Tamika Nurse, who is also from Hamilton, said that how Gilgeous-Alexander carries himself through difficult times perfectly embodies the Ontario city’s ethos.

“Hamilton is built on blue-collar workers, Steeltown, they call it,” she said. “A lunch pail and hard hat kinda town, and that’s exactly what he is.

“He really had to work hard. He really had to prove some doubters wrong. This is a guy who was drafted and then traded and then traded again, right?”

Michael Naraine, an associate professor of sport management at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., said Gilgeous-Alexander’s season, one of the best-ever by a Canadian in any sport, and the Finals performances of Dort, Nembhard and Mathurin have created a unique opportunity for Canada Basketball. Naraine sees it as similar to the creation of the Toronto Raptors in 1995, the emergence of Vince Carter as a superstar in the late 1990s, Steve Nash’s back-to-back MVPs in 2005 and 2006, and the Raptors’ NBA championship in 2019.

“It’s going to create another wave of people wanting to pick up the game and that’s going to be both on the men’s and women’s side, boys and girls are going to want to pick up the game because they see that the No. 1 men’s professional basketball player in the world right now is Canadian,” said Naraine. “If you are living in Montreal, if you’re living in Dorval, you’re looking at this going well, you know, our Canadian teams in hockey didn’t do so great.

“But then you’re looking at Dort or Mathurin saying, ‘hey, look, here’s this kid with these Haitian roots, growing up in Montreal. That could be me.’”

Bartlett also compared these NBA Finals to those other moments in Canadian basketball history that fed into the growing popularity of the sport.

“We want there to be no shortage of opportunities for kids at all skill levels to be able to play this game and to stay in love and play this game for as long as they want,” said Bartlett. “What does that look like for somebody who’s still involved in the game (in their 40s), either as a player, as a coach, as an official.

“Are there enough great coaches, well-trained coaches, to teach the game the right way in Canada, in gyms across this country? Canada Basketball can’t be in every gym, but we can develop a curriculum that lives through every gym, that coaches are taught the right way, and then officiating as well. That’s a big part of it, too.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 23, 2025.