On Friday, halfway around the globe, the current edition of the Canadian men’s national team will play their first meaningful game as a unit against France, one of the best, most accomplished and — not coincidentally — most experienced teams at the FIBA Basketball World Cup.
It will also mark a landmark moment for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his first cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, the pair of 24-year-olds born 52 days apart and raised nearly as brothers, sharing the same basketball dreams, supported by their closely intertwined families.
Suiting up for Canada at the World Cup — and hopefully next summer at the Olympics — gives them a chance to do what they’ve been doing since they were old enough to bounce a ball: play together.
It’s a big reason they were among the first to commit to being part of Canada’s current core — the group Canada Basketball brought together to see the men’s program through last summer, the World Cup and, if all goes well, the Olympics in Paris in 2024. The lanky guards signed up to help win medals, sure, but they were also excited to be teammates again, their natural state but one interrupted by the inevitable business considerations of professional basketball, which currently find Gilgeous-Alexander on the Oklahoma City Thunder and Alexander-Walker on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“I know there’s debate about Canadian players wanting to play for their country, but with Nickeil and Shai there is no doubt about their love of playing for Canada,” says Nicole Alexander, Alexander-Walker’s mom and Gilgeous-Alexander’s aunt. “But also one of the big catalysts for them to play was the chance to play together. And for them to do this after starting out as little boys, that’s just one more accolade for them. As a Canadian and an individual and as parents, you couldn’t be more proud. And if they could get a medal? It would be fantastic, and I think they can do it.”
It won’t be easy. It’s no exaggeration to say this edition of the men’s national team is stepping into the great unknown while also, given the talent on the roster, simultaneously carrying the weight of great expectations.
The expectations have been there for a while, ever since Canadians started to be taken in the first round of the NBA draft as a matter of routine. But the hope of the past four years was that by now Canada would have the benefit of continuity as they try to earn a World Cup podium while also attempting to pre-qualify for the 2024 Olympics in Paris as one of the top two teams among the seven in the tournament from the Americas — a not-so-insignificant side hustle.
The continuity piece hasn’t quite come together, though. The head coach, Jordi Fernandez, is new, having taken over earlier this summer when incumbent Nick Nurse unexpectedly stepped down. Of the projected starters RJ Barrett and Dwight Powell are the only ones returning from the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Victoria in the summer of 2021, although Kelly Olynyk, Gilgeous-Alexander, Alexander-Walker and Powell were all starters for Canada last summer when Canada in an important World Cup-qualifying win over Argentina. The other three NBA players on Canada’s roster this summer — Barrett, Lu Dort and Dillon Brooks — didn’t play last summer, though they were with the team in training.
There is certainly plenty of reason for optimism. During a five-game exhibition series before the tournament, Canada beat Germany and Spain in overtime on their respective home floors — impressive outings against teams with medal aspirations of their own. But oftentimes in pressure-packed moments in international tournaments, where win-or-else games are just 40 minutes long, the three-point line is shorter and the defensive rules allow less-gifted squads to muck up games for their opponents, it’s cohesion that matters as much as talent.
“I mean, [we] gotta be good everywhere,” says Olynyk, one of Canada’s most experienced senior team players. “The thing about the World Cup and the Olympics and stuff like this is it comes down to one game every time or one possession or whatever it is. So you have to be good at everything. You have to be able to get a stop, you have to be able to score, you’ve gotta be physical, tough mentally, and you have to be deep because you never know what’s going to happen, especially in FIBA. They’ve got five fouls, the games are shorter, packed together, the tournament is condensed so you’ve gotta be well rounded to make noise in international basketball.”
Which is why what Canada may lack in on-court reps in high-pressure environments the team is hoping they can make up with a collective basketball history that goes back decades, in some cases. The Canadian basketball scene has, by every measure, grown in leaps and bounds since Steve Nash was the only NBA starter on the Olympic team in 2000, that last time Canada’s men qualified for an Olympic tournament. But at the top end it’s still small and close-knit.
“You know everyone that’s in the building, you know?” explains Brooks, the burly defensive specialist who signed this past off-season with the Houston Rockets. “You came across all these guys when you were younger, grew up with them or played against them.… It’s a family environment and everybody is here to win, get better and do something special for the country.”
But there is family-like and there is family.
Gilgeous-Alexander and Alexander-Walker started playing together at age six, enrolling in the Youth Association for Academics, Athletics and Character Education (YAAACE) program centred in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood, and then moved as a tandem to various other clubs as they worked their way through the competitive youth basketball scene.
“They slept in the same bed, any chance they could be together they would be, they were on the phone together all the time,” says Vaughn Alexander, Shai’s father, Nicole’s brother and Nickeil’s uncle. “They were linked up 24-7, that’s why they’re so close now.”
It’s that passion and those ties that Canada is hoping will expedite the development of the type of crucial on-court chemistry a team like France earned with multiple recent appearances in the World Cup, Olympics and European championships. Canada’s core has history together, just not as a single unit. Powell and Olynyk have been Canada’s most reliable big-man tandem since playing together on the senior team for the first time at the Tournament of the Americas in 2015; Barrett and Gilgeous-Alexander played AAU basketball together and were youngsters taking it all in as teenagers when Canada went to the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Philippines in 2016; Dort and Gilgeous-Alexander are starters with the Thunder; and Canada has five NBA returnees from the team that just missed qualifying for the 2020 Olympics.
But no grouping rivals the chemistry of Gilgeous-Alexander and Alexander-Walker, who — particularly with Jamal Murray having ruled himself out for the tournament — could be the backbone of an intriguing closing lineup for Fernandez, especially if he chooses to play small down the stretch.
“They have a lot of chemistry. They can finish each other’s sentences. They slept in the same beds, argued together, battled together and they dreamed the same dreams and they accomplished those goals,” says Vaughn. “They can look at themselves and say, ‘Wow, we did it.’ They have so much in common, so when they bring that to the court? … I think it’s a perfect fit.”
The cousins share a trainer in the off-season — Team Canada and Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Nate Mitchell — and workout three times a day, five days a week.
“It’s always fun to play with him. I grew up playing with him. [This] is a dream come true,” was how Gilgeous-Alexander described the opportunity to play with his cousin during the men’s team training camp. “Not a lot of people continue to get to play with their family. And hopefully that happens a lot of times in our career.”
Their relationship was cemented when the pair played their last two seasons of high school together at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn. They shared a room at head coach Zach Ferrell’s house, led the school to national prominence and put themselves on the recruiting map with Alexander-Walker landing at Virginia Tech and Gilgeous-Alexander starring at Kentucky. Shai was eventually drafted 11th overall in the 2018 NBA Draft; Nickeil was taken at No. 17 a year later.
Their high-school jersey numbers have both since been retired by the school and Alexander-Walker will again wear No.1, while Gilgeous-Alexander wears No.2 for Canada against France.
Their professional careers have been divergent to this point. Gilgeous-Alexander has thrived in Oklahoma City and achieved genuine stardom this past season when he earned first-team all-NBA recognition after averaging 31.4 points, 5.5 assists, 4.8 rebounds, 1.6 steals and 1.0 blocks.
Alexander-Walker is still waiting for his breakout moment after playing for three teams and five coaches in four years. But he appears to have found some traction with the Timberwolves after joining head coach Chris Finch’s team midway through last season.
Ironically one of his breakout moments came against his cousin as the Timberwolves hosted the Thunder for the second play-in game, with a playoff spot on the line. Alexander-Walker got the start and was given the task of guarding Gilgeous-Alexander, which he did as well as anyone, holding the Thunder star to 5-of-19 shooting and finishing with a plus-18 rating to his cousin’s minus-22 as their time on the floor was matched to the second and Minnesota got the win.
In some ways it was a throwback to driveway battles when Vaughn would pit the two talented cousins head-to-head to hone their skills and their competitive spirits, as more than one game ended in a near fight.
The hard feelings never lasted, or at least never got in the way of a sleepover and accompanying videogame sessions and snack feasts, each cousin known to have a sweet tooth.
But the brother-like bond built over all those battles and shared dreams and experiences? That is in place forever, and the Canadian men’s national team is better for it.