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Oklahoma City Thunder star has completed one of the greatest single seasons in Canadian sports history.
Published Jun 23, 2025 • 4 minute read
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder celebrates with the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player trophy.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder celebrates with the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player trophy. Getty Images
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The names atop the list are legends, all of them: Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal.
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And now another name: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, born in Toronto, raised in Hamilton, the fourth player of the 4,800 or so who have suited up in the NBA to win a championship, a league MVP award, a scoring title and a Finals MVP all in the very same season.
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One of the truly great individual and team seasons in Canadian sports history.
Wayne Gretzky did precisely the same thing in 1985. His Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup. Gretzky won the scoring championship and the Hart Trophy as most valuable player during this regular season. He then went on to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
For all of Gretzky’s records, his nine Hart Trophy wins, his 11 scoring titles, his four Stanley Cups, he only had one Gilgeous-Alexander season where he took home everything.
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That puts them together now, Gretzky and Gilgeous-Alexander, as unlikely as that may seem. Gretzky being one of two Canadian players in the modern history of the NHL to have a season winning everything.
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Guy Lafleur won the NHL scoring title in 1977, the same year he took home the Hart, the Conn Smythe and the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Canadiens. He was Canada’s athlete of the year in 1977. Gretzky was Canada’s athlete of the year in 1985. Gilgeous-Alexander should win his second Northern Star award this December.
And in his sport, Gilgeous-Alexsander won an NBA scoring title with the champion Oklahoma City Thunder while averaging 32.7 points per game.
To put that number into some kind of perspective, consider this: The 32.7 points per game was more than Steph Curry scored in his two scoring championship seasons; it’s more than Kevin Durant scored in winning four scoring titles; it’s more than Jordan scored in seven of the nine seasons he won scoring championships and more than Allen Iverson scored in his three times leading the league.
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Some of the greatest Canadian athletes in history — Sidney Crosby, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr — all won Stanley Cups and scoring titles and MVP awards, just not necessarily in the same seasons.
Lemieux had his best scoring season in 1993, after Pittsburgh had won two straight Stanley Cups. That year, they lost to Glenn Healy, Ray Ferraro and the New York Islanders in the second round of the playoffs.
Crosby has won three Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh and two Conn Smythe Trophies and two scoring titles, just never in the same year.
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So you put Gilgeous-Alexander alongside Gretzky and Lafleur and that’s where he belongs on the list of great Canadian athletes.
Now ahead of Steve Nash, the two-time MVP of the NBA, who never won a championship. Now ahead of whatever Alphonso Davies has attained in the soccer world. Now ahead of the yards Chuba Hubbard has rushed for in the National Football League and anything Russ Jackson did while playing quarterback for Ottawa way back when.
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There was no Conn Smythe Trophy in the days when Gordie Howe was winning Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings. Howe won four of them in a six-year period in the 1950s. He won one of his six MVP awards in those Stanley Cup years. He won scoring titles in two of his four Cup winning seasons. Had there been a Conn Smythe back then, Howe likely would have one or two of them.
So he ranks among the greats, just not at the top of the hardware list.
No pitcher in Canadian history ever had a season as great as the one Ferguson Jenkins had in 1971. He started 39 games for the Chicago Cubs, finished with a record of 24-13, an earned run average of 2.77 and 321 innings pitched and a Cy Young Award victory and the highest Wins Above Replacement number of his magnificent career. His average start that year: 8 2/3s inning pitched.
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That was Jenkins’ fifth straight 20-win season, back when winning games meant something for a starting pitcher. He won 20 again the following season. And again two seasons later in Texas.
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[Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander celebrates with teammates in the locker room after winning the NBA championship against the Indiana Pacers.
NBA champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander now Canada's greatest basketball player](https://torontosun.com/sports/basketball/nba/shai-gilgeous-alexander-greatest-player)
2. [Kristin Chenoweth sings the U.S. national anthem before Game 7 of the NBA Finals basketball series between the Indiana Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Award-winning actress leaves NBA fans divided after Game 7 anthem goes viral](https://torontosun.com/sports/basketball/nba/kristin-chenoweth-fans-divided-game-7-anthem-viral)
He’s the greatest Canadian baseball player we’ve ever known.
Larry Walker won an MVP award with the Colorado Rockies in 1997. He hit 49 home runs that season, knocked in 130 and lead the National League in those eight different categories finishing the year with a career-high OPS of 1.172 and a career high WAR of 9.8.
Jenkins and Walker are the baseball Canadians to remember. Davies is the soccer player from Bayern Munich we should never forget. Howe and Lemieux and Orr and Crosby have played hockey, really, like no one else has ever played. Each of them stylistic individuals of mammoth skill.
But right now, as of Sunday night, there is Gretzky and Lafleur and Gilgeous-Alexander with the single greatest seasons in Canadian sport. When Mike Weir won the Masters, he did that over four days, historical as it may have been. When Bianca Andreescu won the U.S. Open, she did that over a two-week tournament.
Gilgeous-Alexander played 99 games this season with Oklahoma City, one more than Gretzky played in 1985, five more than Lafleur managed with the Canadiens of 1977.
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