The best basketball player in the world is from Hamilton. On Thursday, the city will celebrate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, after one of the greatest seasons in NBA history.
In 2025, he won the NBA championship, the finals MVP, the regular season MVP and the league scoring title.
The only other players who have managed that feat in one season are Shaquille O’ Neal, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Jordan, who did it four times. That’s all. Just Gilgeous-Alexander and three NBA Hall-of-Famers. No Lebron. No Kobe. No Steph Curry.
The Oklahoma City Thunder point guard is on a very short list with some of the greatest players of all time. On Thursday, he came to his hometown, welcomed by Mayor Andrea Horwath and local fans.
There’s no charge to be a part of the rally, which begins at 3:30 p.m. ET at Hamilton Stadium.
Verbo Dela Cruz, 20, showed up early to see Gilgeous-Alexander.
“He’s putting us on the map — not just Toronto. It’s Hamilton now too,” said Dela Cruz.
“He’s a huge inspiration,” added his friend Maddox Abarico, 21.
Mayor Horwath will give Gilgeous-Alexander “the first Key to the City presented by a Mayor since 1998, one of Hamilton’s highest honours,” the city said in a news release in July.
The event will be hosted by TSN’s Kate Beirness and former Hamilton Tiger-Cats legend Simoni Lawrence. Gilgeous-Alexander will also be honoured during the Tiger-Cats home game vs. the B.C. Lions at 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday. Tickets for that game are sold separately.
“Hamilton is the city where I grew up, and it shaped the most pivotal years of my life,” said Gilgeous-Alexander in a news release. “It laid the foundation not only for who I am as a basketball player, but for the man I’ve become. I wouldn’t be who I am today without this city, and I’m deeply grateful for the continued love and support.”
Horwath said bestowing the key is a “symbolic gesture of the deep pride and admiration Hamilton holds for one of its own.”
The last recipient of the Key to the City was professional wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin, who then-mayor Bob Morrow presented with a key in September 1998. Morrow also said he was renaming Main and Bay streets Stone Cold Way for the day, according to the Hamilton Spectator archives.
A lifelong Hamiltonian, Pam Edgecomb, 75, said being at the rally and seeing Gilgeous-Alexander in person felt surreal.
“Shai, we admire him so much, as an athlete, a human being, a role model, for all ages,” she said. He’s unbelievable. It’s just unbelievable it really is.”
