TORONTO — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has got jokes.
As teenagers, both he and Knicks swingman RJ Barrett hung around the Canadian senior men’s basketball team that tried to qualify for the Rio Olympics in 2016. Canada had crashed out in heartbreaking fashion the year before in Mexico and were competing in a last-chance tournament to try to get there.
Like so many other recent Canadian teams, that group failed in its mission. However, Gilgeous-Alexander and Barrett formed a bit of a bond that year, not playing, and now they are two of the biggest names that will be part of Canada’s attempt to qualify for the 2024 Olympics at the FIBA World Cup this summer.
“Yeah,” Gilgeous Alexander said on Tuesday after the team’s first media availability, “(but) he has no choice.”
Barrett’s father, Rowan, is the team’s general manager, so point made, and rather efficiently. More than any other player, though, Gilgeous-Alexander will be responsible for leading this one to, first, old heights, and then maybe new ones. With both his country and his club, the Oklahoma City Thunder, there has been talk for so long about potential.
With Canada, between him and Jamal Murray and a bevy of other NBAers and established FIBA contributors, it is time to live up to the promise of the pipeline of talent that has been obviously coming since the beginning of the previous decade. The Thunder’s baggage is just as long, although obviously there isn’t the same throughline as there is with Canada. (Point guard Cory Joseph is to Canada as Thunder general manager Sam Presti is to Oklahoma City? It’s an imperfect comparison, for sure.)
What’s clear: Both Canada and Oklahoma City are getting ready to win again in a major way, and Gilgeous-Alexander figures to be at the centre of it.
“You always want to win. You never want to lose. And you’re going to learn through both experiences,” Gilgeous-Alexander said about this stage of his career. “But it’s for sure fun to play competitive basketball and try to win every night.”
For Canada, the goal is as ambitious as it is simple: Finish top two among teams from the Americas in the World Cup, clinching a spot in Paris. Once there, try to medal. (If Canada finishes outside the top two of the seven teams from the region, they might have a last opportunity to make the Olympics before Paris. Canada has struck out in last-chance tournaments in both of the last two Olympic cycles.)
In red-and-white maple-leaf-adorned shoes, Gilgeous-Alexander stood confidently as one of the faces of the national program. With the Thunder, because of the team’s youth, he has to fill that role. He has accomplished the most in the NBA among the Thunder core, and it’s not particularly close.
With Canada, there are veterans: Joseph, Kelly Olynyk, Dwight Powell, not to mention FIBA stalwarts such as Kevin Pangos and Melvin Ejim. Yet Gilgeous-Alexander carries with him the gravitational force of a player who just made All-NBA First Team. Even when Steve Nash was leading Canada to great results in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was yet to become two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash.
You can make a case that this version of Gilgeous-Alexander is, at this very moment, the most established NBA star who has ever played for Canada. (His teammate Murray, whose minutes and workload will be watched closely leading up to the World Cup, isn’t far behind.) That carries a ton of weight.
“Obviously he’s one of the great players that this nation has to offer,” Powell said. “So he has the mindset of wanting to compete at every opportunity and win at every opportunity, especially with us. So that’s what we need. And everybody’s going to follow suit.”
“He’s been the guy connecting with everybody,” said Kings assistant coach Jordi Fernandez, who took over for Nick Nurse as Canada’s head coach last month. “He’s been the guy bringing the group together. And he’s been a voice. And I think that is very important because as young as he is, he’s showing leadership. And you can lead in so many ways. And he made his own way. He’s bringing this group together. And I think that that just makes my job easier.”
Perhaps that is why there has not been the same amount of agita concerning Gilgeous-Alexander’s commitment to the program as there has been with Canadian stars in the past. Maybe that had to do with not having quite the pre-NBA hype that guys such as Andrew Wiggins, Murray and Barrett had, but the will-he-won’t-he thing hasn’t been a, well, thing for the Thunder star. It was always assumed that when he got his career in order, he’d represent and lead his country. Last summer, he made his debut for the senior team in a World Cup qualifying game in his hometown of Hamilton.
Now, here he is, in the middle of everything.
“I think the country, where I come from, is the reason I’m the player I am today,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “With the opportunities that I got growing up and the coaches that helped me and the fans that were behind me and ultimately the city I grew up in, where I was raised, all of it goes back to being in Canada. And playing for the country, the nation, the fans, everyone that represents it and wears Canada on their chest, on their driver’s license, whatever it is, it’s an honour, and it means a lot. And we all wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for it.”
For longtime observers of the program, those words are sweet to hear from the country’s best player. Having a player as good as Gilgeous-Alexander means knowing you have a chance in any game, even if there is a talent gap with the rest of the roster.
Thunder fans learned that this past season. As deep as Canada is, the program might not feel it in quite the same way. Still, having one of the best players in the world in your colours gives you a shot.
(Photo: Stephen Lew / USA Today)