![\"Shai](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Shai-Lu-1-784x441.png\")
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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort are among the potential award winners from Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the NBA season heads into the stretch run, Canada has a real shot to be part of the awards conversation in a few different ways. The biggest one is obvious: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is right at the front of the MVP race again. After that, Nickeil Alexander-Walker has built a sneaky case as a dark-horse Most Improved Player candidate, while Lu Dort and a pair of Canadian assistants could still factor into the defensive and coaching conversations before the season wraps.<\/p>\n
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is still the Canadian awards king<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re looking for the strongest Canadian case on the board, it starts and ends with SGA. He sits No. 1 on the latest Kia MVP Ladder<\/a>, and the argument is pretty clean: he\u2019s averaging 31.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 6.6 assists a night for an Oklahoma City team that became the season\u2019s first 50-game winner and owns the NBA\u2019s best defensive rating<\/a>. That\u2019s star-level scoring, elite two-way value and team success \u2014 basically the full MVP checklist.<\/p>\n The extra context only helps him. Gilgeous-Alexander broke Wilt Chamberlain\u2019s record<\/a> with 127 straight 20-point games earlier this month, which is the kind of consistency voters love when they\u2019re separating superstars at the top of the ballot. If he closes cleanly, there\u2019s a very real path to a second straight MVP.<\/p>\n And honestly, he should be the favourite for Clutch Player of the Year too. SGA leads the league<\/a> in clutch points with 156, and he has stacked up signature late-game moments lately, including huge finishes against Denver and Boston. If voters want the guy who keeps showing up when the game gets tight, that case is sitting right there.<\/p>\n Nickeil Alexander-Walker has a real Most Improved case<\/p>\n Alexander-Walker feels like the Canadian name that could surprise people. He\u2019s up to 20.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game with Atlanta, all career highs<\/a>, and his scoring jump has been massive compared to last season\u2019s 9.4 points per game. NBA.com\u2019s John Schuhmann also noted<\/a> that his per-36 scoring has jumped from 13.4 to 22.1, which tells you this isn\u2019t just empty volume \u2014 it\u2019s a real offensive leap.<\/p>\n What makes the case stronger is timing. Alexander-Walker is averaging 21.9 points during Atlanta\u2019s recent surge, and the Hawks were 14-2 after the All-Star break entering this week. That kind of late-season push matters when voters are looking for a breakout that actually changed a team\u2019s season. He may not be the runaway favourite, but he absolutely belongs in the conversation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Highlights From Nickeil Alexander-Walker 26-Point Game<\/p>\n Highlights From Nickeil Alexander-Walker 26-Point Game<\/p>\n Lu Dort\u2019s best shot is probably All-Defense<\/p>\n Dort is probably the best Canadian long-shot name to mention for Defensive Player of the Year, but that road is tough. Oklahoma City has the best defensive rating in the league, and Dort still does the hardest wing assignments on a nightly basis. The problem is that the Thunder have too many other defensive monsters splitting the credit. Chet Holmgren is second in the NBA in blocks at 1.9 per game, while Cason Wallace already won Western Conference Defensive Player of the Month<\/a> and has been one of OKC\u2019s top havoc creators.<\/p>\n Luguentz Dort defends Stephon Castle on Dec. 23, 2025, in San Antonio.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why DPOY feels more like Victor Wembanyama\u2019s award to lose. He leads the league in blocks per game at 3.0 and total blocks at 173, and the Spurs are sitting third in defensive rating. He\u2019s just ridiculous, and that usually wins out. For Dort, the more realistic outcome is an All-Defensive Team spot \u2014 though even that won\u2019t be easy in a crowded field.<\/p>\n Coach of the Year? Watch the Canadian assistants<\/p>\n There may not be a Canadian head coach in the Coach of the Year race, but there are still a couple of Canadian ties worth tracking. Quin Snyder\u2019s Hawks have ripped off a 14-2 run since the All-Star break, while Charles Lee has become a legitimate Coach of the Year possibility amid Charlotte\u2019s strong 2026 turnaround.<\/p>\n Why does that matter in Canada? Because Snyder\u2019s staff includes Scarborough\u2019s Ashton Smith, and Lee\u2019s staff includes Edmonton\u2019s Jermaine Bucknor. So even if the trophy doesn\u2019t go directly to a Canadian, there\u2019s still a decent chance a Canadian assistant is part of one of the best coaching stories of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luguentz Dort are among the potential award winners from Canada.\u00a0 As the NBA season heads…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,278554,590,278553,63860,85],"class_list":["post-566289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-luguentz-dort-and-more-are-in-the-nba-awards-race","tag-nba","tag-nickeil","tag-shai","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2253439325-784x523.jpg\")
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