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The 2025-26 NBA season tipped off Tuesday night with a pair of marquee games.
Reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder raised their championship banner before beating Kevin Durant’s Houston Rockets in overtime after SGA sank two free throws with 2.3 seconds left to finish with 35 points. Then, Jimmy Butler scored 31 points to lead Golden State past the Los Angeles Lakers, who got 43 from Luka Doncic while LeBron James sat out with sciatica, delaying the start of his record-breaking 23rd season in the league. Both games were televised by NBC, which marked its first NBA broadcast in almost a quarter century by reintroducing the beloved Roundball Rock theme music from the ’90s.
The Toronto Raptors open Wednesday in Atlanta, hoping to challenge for a playoff (or at least play-in) spot after going 30-52 and failing to advance to the post-season for the second straight year. Toronto is currently trading at 39.5 wins in the betting markets, suggesting they’ll be right in the mix for one of the four play-in berths in the Eastern Conference.
Canadian basketball fans will also be happy to know that our country remains, by far, the largest foreign supplier of NBA players (maybe we should tariff them?). According to the league, 23 Canadians (plus another two “with ties” to Canada) are currently rostered by NBA teams, including those signed to two-way contracts with a G League affiliate. That’s more than triple the exports from any other country — a list led by France, Australia and Germany with seven players apiece.
Here’s a look at the top Canadians to watch this season, starting with four guys who played important roles in last spring’s NBA Finals:
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort (Oklahoma City Thunder):
After leading Oklahoma City to its first NBA championship with a seven-game victory over the plucky Indiana Pacers, Gilgeous-Alexander became the first Canadian (and just the fifth non-American) to win Finals MVP in the 56-year history of the award. This capped a season for the ages by the superstar guard, who became only the fourth player ever to win the regular-season and Finals MVP awards and the scoring title in the same campaign, joining (heard of these guys?) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal and Michael Jordan.
SGA also powered OKC to the league’s best regular-season record at 68-14. So it’s no wonder the Thunder, one of the youngest championship teams in NBA history, are favoured to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy again while Gilgeous-Alexander is the front-runner to repeat as MVP over Doncic, Denver’s Nikola Jokic and third-year San Antonio giant Victor Wembanyama.
Dort is a relentless 3-and-D man who often guards the opponent’s best perimeter player as a key cog in the Thunder’s suffocating defence. He was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive First Team last season while averaging 10.1 points and knocking down a career-high 41.2 per cent of his three-point attempts.
Andrew Nembhard and Bennedict Mathurin (Indiana Pacers):
Seeded fourth in the East, Indiana made a surprising run to the Finals and fell one win short of upsetting the heavily favoured Thunder with both of its Canadians playing important roles.
Nembhard started all 23 playoff games and averaged 12.5 points and 4.7 assists while handling some big defensive responsibilities. He was a noticeable nuisance to Gilgeous-Alexander in the Finals, helping hold him to a tough 8-for-27 shooting from the field in Game 7 — though, thanks to his incredible ability to draw (and make) free throws and create for his teammates, SGA still scored 29 points and dished out 12 assists in OKC’s title-clinching win.
Mathurin came off the bench to score a game-high 27 points in the Pacers’ Game 3 win over the Thunder and had a team-best 24 in Indy’s 103-91 loss in Game 7 after star point guard Tyrese Haliburton went down with a torn Achilles in the first quarter.
With Haliburton out for the season, the Pacers may need even more from Nembhard and Mathurin (and ex-Raptor Pascal Siakam) to avoid falling out of the playoff picture.
Jamal Murray (Denver Nuggets): Following his awful performance at the Paris Olympics, the oft-injured guard averaged a career-high 21.4 points per game but saw his shooting efficiency decline while he missed 15 games, bringing his total to 38 absences over the last two seasons. Murray was unable to help the Nuggets capitalize on Jokic’s best statistical season as they fell to Oklahoma City in seven games in the second round of the playoffs. On the bright side, Murray exploded for 43 points in an opening-round win over the Clippers, his best playoff total since dropping 50, 42 and 50 in consecutive games against Utah in the 2020 Disney World bubble.
Shaedon Sharpe (Portland Trail Blazers): The seventh overall pick in the 2022 draft averaged a career-high 18.5 points last season while starting 52 games (also a career best). That turned him into a very rich man this week as Sharpe, 22, signed a four-year, $90-million US extension. He’s expected to become a full-time starter this season.
Zach Edey (Memphis Grizzlies): After winning back-to-back NCAA player of the year awards at Purdue, the seven-foot-three, 300-pound centre went ninth in last year’s draft and turned in a solid pro debut, averaging nine points and eight rebounds to make the NBA’s All-Rookie First Team. However, he’s expected to miss the first few weeks of the season after undergoing ankle surgery in June. Edey is one of a league-high three Canadians on the Grizzlies’ roster, along with forwards Brandon Clarke and Olivier-Maxence Prosper (the latter is a two-way player).
Dillon Brooks (Phoenix Suns): The scrappy veteran forward is now pissing off opponents for the Suns, who acquired him as part of the big seven-team trade that sent Kevin Durant to Houston. Brooks, 29, averaged 14 points last season for the Rockets.
Andrew Wiggins (Miami Heat): Now in his 12th NBA season, the former No. 1 overall pick averaged 18 points last season, which he split between Miami and Golden State after the Warriors shipped him out in their trade for Jimmy Butler.
RJ Barrett (Toronto Raptors): Toronto’s lone full-time Canadian (guard A.J. Lawson is on a two-way deal with Raptors 905, the team’s G League affiliate), Barrett averaged a club-best 21.1 points last season along with 6.3 rebounds and 5.4 assists. But health remained an issue for the 25-year-old wing, who missed 24 games for the second straight year.
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