A formerly “puny” man could not find anyone tall enough to guard him. A few years into his professional career, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander needed to add post-up drills to his summer routine. His trainers, far from the typical troop that surrounds an NBA superstar, couldn’t meet the criteria. Gilgeous-Alexander spends his summers in Hamilton, Ontario, near where he grew up. His morning workouts, which begin at 6 a.m., include a Team Canada assistant coach and six friends from high school.
The gang goes by the name of its text chat: “Sunrise Training.” But no regular sunrise trainer is bigger than 6 foot 2. Whatever the crew wanted to try with Gilgeous-Alexander on the low block, it couldn’t come close to replicating the MVP candidate’s NBA counterparts. They were determined to solve the problem.
The gymnasium where he and the sunrise trainers work contains three courts: one he and his friends were using that day, another empty one and one more where a 6-8 stranger, Stefan Borovac, was shooting around. Both he and Gilgeous-Alexander’s group finished around the same time. As Borovac headed to the door, passing the sunrise trainers on the way, Nate Mitchell, Gilgeous-Alexander’s summer coach and a coach with Team Canada for nearly a decade, wandered to this power-forward-sized figure.
The sunrise trainers were about to acquire a new member. Gilgeous-Alexander, with his unconventional training crew, has become an unconventional megastar. He is the best player on the 50-11 Oklahoma City Thunder, who are running away with the Western Conference’s top seed. He’s tracking to win his first scoring title, averaging 32.6 points and most recently dropping 51 Monday against the Houston Rockets, his fourth 50-point performance over the past seven weeks. With only a quarter of the season remaining, Las Vegas has him as the odds-on favorite to win his first MVP.
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