Another day, another new recognition to add to Shai Gilgeous-Alexader’s ever-growing list of career accolades. The 25-year-old NBA superstar was named winner of the 2023 North Star Award last week.

Joining two-time NBA MVP, Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame and Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame inductee Steve Nash, Gilgeous-Alexander is just the second basketball player to ever win the annual award, given to Canada’s top athlete, male or female, in its 87-year history.

“It’s a good feeling, there are so many guys that have come before me that I want to thank,” Gilgeous-Alexander said to the media in Oklahoma City the day the award was announced. "They kind of laid the foundation for me to excel how I have, coming from Canada. It’s an honour, obviously, to represent the country and be noticed by the country where I was raised.”

Gilgeous-Alexander won the award just months after leading the Canadian Senior Men’s National Team to its first ever bronze medal at the FIBA Men’s Basketball World Cup 2023 this August where he was also named to the FIBA Men’s Basketball World Cup 2023 All-Star 5. He led Canada with 24.5 points per game. Canada captured the bronze medal after defeating the United States 127-118 in overtime.

Prior to making history with Team Canada in Manila, the Hamilton native was also named to the All-NBA First Team after averaging 31.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.0 blocks per game for the Oklahoma City Thunder in his fifth NBA season. Like the North Star Award, Gilgeous-Alexander joins Nash (2007) as the only Canadians to be named to an All-NBA First Team.

Gilgeous-Alexander is currently fourth in the NBA in scoring, averaging 30.7 points per game to go along with 5.5 rebounds, 6.4 assists and a league-leading 2.8 steals per game. On the same day that the award was announced, Gilgeous-Alexander arrived to the Thunder’s arena in a jersey that is very familiar to Canadian sports fans:

In the week since, he scored 30 points in a victory against the Utah Jazz, followed that up with 43 points against the Sacramento Kings and then calmly drilled a game-winning jumper on the road to push the Thunder over the defending-champion Denver Nuggets.

He also had 30 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals in just 28 minutes in Oklahoma City’s most recent victory against the Memphis Grizzlies. His incredible play has the Thunder second in the Western Conference, and Gilgeous-Alexander himself firmly in (early) MVP conversations.

Open this tweet for the full effect:

Bonus content: Some of Shai’s smoothest players (there’s a lot of them), this season.

EMBED: https://twitter.com/CanBball/status/1737282238901809427

• The Canadian Senior Men’s Team weren't the only team with a bronze medal win this summer. Canada’s U19 Women’s squad won a bronze medal of their own at the FIBA U19 Women’s Basketball World Cup in July.

That third-place finish was reflected in the most recent FIBA World Ranking Girls, Presented by NIKE, as Canada is currently ranked third in the world. Canada’s U16 Women’s National Team helped further the rankings boost, thanks to a silver-medal finish at the FIBA U16 Women’s Americas Championship 2023.

While Toby Fournier, Cassandre Prosper and Syla Swords led the way for the U19 Team in Madrid this past July, the U16’s were led by standout performances from Deniyah Brawl, Cearah Parchment and Savannah Swords to go 5-1 en route to their second-place finish in Mexico this summer.

This 3rd-place FIBA World Ranking Girls placement is the highest-ever ranking for Canada.

Back to the NBA, Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t the only Canadian guilty of lighting up scoreboards across the league. Tuesday, Dec. 12 will go down in Canadian NBA hoops history as five Canadians scored 25+ points on a single night for the first time in NBA history.

While Gilgeous-Alexander and Bennedict Mathurin each scored 30 points in their respective games, Jamal Murray had a sason-high 29 points against Atlanta, and RJ Barrett and Shaedon Sharpe each scored 27 points to serve as a reminder of how bright Canada’s NBA present and future is.

This week marked Dillon Brooks' first return to Memphis since being traded to the Houston Rockets this summer after six years with the Grizzlies. In typical Brooks fashion, he rose to the occasion. After a slow first half, Brooks exploded in the second, scoring 24 of his 26 points, none bigger than the three-pointer he hit to put Houston ahead by five with 40 seconds remaining.

Less than three seconds later, Brooks all but sealed the victory by stealing an inbounds pass and assisting teammate Tari Eason for a dunk to put the Rockets up seven and keep the game out of reach for the Grizzlies.

While the aforementioned possessions sealed the victory, the 24 points scored by Brooks in the second half allowed Houston to be in a position to secure it. Check out this compilation of those second-half Brooks highlights, absolutely worth your time, courtesy of the Rockets.

Brooks is averaging 14.0 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.0 steals in 31.6 minutes per game for the Rockets in his seventh NBA season. After lighting it up from beyond the arc for Team Canada this summer at the FIBA Men’s Basketball World Cup, Brooks is shooting career-bests from the floor (47 percent) and from deep (39 percent) with Houston this season.

Finally we would be remiss if we didn’t give some shine to Aaliyah Edwards and the senior season she is putting together for the University of Connecticut, especially today, as she prepares to play in a homecoming game versus Toronto Metropolitan University Bold in Toronto on Wed. Dec. 20.

After helping Canada to a bronze-medal finish at the FIBA Women’s Basketball AmeriCup 2023 this past July, Edwards is averaging 16.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, 2.1 assists and nearly a block in 30.8 minutes per game for the Huskies this season. In UConn’s most recent game, a dominant 88-62 victory over Butler, Edwards had a 12-point, 12-rebound double-double. This comes after a 22-point performance in an 88-62 Huskies win over the Louisville Cardinals. The Huskies have had to navigate a brutal number of injuries to start the season and Edwards has provided a steadying presence, in the post and off the court.

Wednesday’s game in Toronto will provide the Kingston, Ontario native with the opportunity to play in front of family and friends at the Mattamy Athletic Centre. It will also see her facing off against her Team Canada assistant coach, and GLOBL Jam head coach Carly Clarke who has been the head coach for TMU Bold for the past 11 seasons.