Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the born in Toronto, raised in Hamilton, all Canadian who is unlike any who came before him, will turn 30 in the summer of 2028, the next time basketball is played at the Olympic Games.
That will also arrive after his 10th season as a dominant NBA player and quite possibly after he has experienced the thrill of leading his Oklahoma City Thunder to a championship.
That championship will matter to fans of the Thunder. And to the dedicated hardcore basketball fans around here. But the Olympics, in this country, with this player, with this still growing group of phenomenal Canadian men’s players, could light up the Los Angeles Olympics in a way that has rarely happened before in basketball.
You don’t get a lot of Olympic opportunities in a lifetime.
You don’t often get a chance to carry a gold medal around for the rest of your life.
Championship rings are nice, wonderful even. But that’s your team, your profession. It’s not your country. It’s not your national anthem. It’s not your flag.
It’s people who don’t care about basketball suddenly caring.
The first time at the Olympics since 2000 didn’t go the way Team Canada wanted it to go. Gilgeous-Alexander was the best Canadian at the Games in Paris, but he wasn’t overwhelming. He wasn’t the kind of unstoppable he seems to be on so many NBA nights.
Canada won all of its three round-robin games in Lille, France, but never looked great in any of them. Never found their legs or their momentum or their style of play. When the Olympic tournament moved to Paris, the stage changed, the noise changed, Team Canada folded.
Like a cheap suit for a team of mostly millionaires.
France pushed them around, scored almost at will, and that was the bitter Olympic experience for Gilgeous-Alexander and his growing team. A slow beginning. A bitter ending. They won’t look back at Paris, one of the spectacular cities in the world. with any real fondness.
Talk to the Team Canada hockey players from 1998 in Japan, the first time NHL players were allowed to participate, about what it was like to come home without a medal. Talk to them now, 26 years later. That was a bitter moment in Nagano. It got worse as the years went on for many of those involved.
It’s not ever a sure thing that Canada will qualify for the next Olympics in men’s basketball. That’s always a process of winding roads and altering commitments. Is it certain Canada will play in Los Angeles? No, it’s not.
But the chances get better if Gilgeous-Alexander is playing basketball anywhere close to the way in which he has played in the NBA these past several seasons.
Each year it seems Gilgeous-Alexander gets better. Last year, he finished second in voting for the MVP award in the NBA and first in the Canadian athlete of the year award. It’s unlikely he wins the MVP this year — he’s still a candidate, just as he’s a candidate, but likely not the winner of the Canadian athlete award.
Swimmer Summer McIntosh is expected to win that one. Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon will contend, as will Gilgeous-Alexander. But if there is another Northern Star award for him, it will come in the future, not this week.
In a way, Gilgeous-Alexander is like a lot of great professionals. This is his seventh NBA season, and he seems to get better every year, seems to grow his game. For the third year in a row, he’s scoring less and passing more. It’s not a giant change, more subtle than anything, with Gilgeous-Alexander going from a career high 31.4 points a game, to 30.1 to 29.2 this year.
His assists are up, his fouls are down, and he’s shooting more threes, which based on how Thursday night began, remains a work in progress for him.
At Scotiabank Arena, Gilgeous-Alexander showed up for his annual appearance in Toronto to play against the Raptors. It was a night worth noticing for those of us who love Canadian basketball. Gilgeous-Alexander was doing what he does best, scoring in bunches, but on the court there was R.J. Barrett for the Raps and Lu Dort for the Thunder: In one game, there were three of the seven best Canadian basketball players in the world.
The 2028 Olympic team, if there is one, should have Gilgeous-Alexander leading and should have Barrett, and should have the big man, Zach Edey, who passed on Paris. That’s a nice beginning. There is also Bennedict Mathurin of Indiana, who was hurt last summer, able to play in LA. There is Shaedon Sharpe of Portland, just figuring out who he is. There’s no reason anymore to hope or care whether Andrew Wiggins is interested in playing: The country doesn’t need him and his excuses anymore.
The USA is the USA in basketball. France will be better in Los Angeles with a fully matured Victor Wembanyama. Canada, if there, will be the little guy, trying to do the improbable or impossible.
We do need Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to do that. Today, tomorrow and on the road to Los Angeles, 2028.
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