Andrew Nembhard grew up in Aurora, Ontario, with aspirations of one day playing for an NBA championship.
As the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder prepare for Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals, Nembhard’s starting to live out his childhood dream, and he’s doing it alongside some familiar faces from his youth.
Canada basketball is well represented in this year’s Finals, with reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander headlining a quartet of Canadians who’ll compete for the title (Lu Dort and Bennedict Mathurin are the other two).
Nembhard recalls being 7 years old and competing in tournaments against a 9-year-old Gilgeous-Alexander, who was apparently just as much of a problem back then as he is now.
“He was the same size in the eighth grade,” Nembhard said of Gilgeous-Alexander during his Finals media sessions Wednesday. “Hitting shots, dunking crazy, crazy stuff. He came out the womb like that.”
In addition to OKC’s engine, Nembhard has a connection to the team’s defensive anchor, Chet Holmgren. The two were teammates at Gonzaga for a season, leading the Zags to a 28-4 record and a trip to the Sweet 16 before Holmgren was selected No. 2 overall in the 2022 NBA Draft, followed by Nembhard at pick No. 31.
Here’s more from Nembhard’s media day ahead of Thursday’s matchup at the Paycom Center.
“I don’t know. I don’t think none of us care about how overlooked we are. I don’t think we pay attention to what the media thinks about, what our projections are gonna be. We have a close-knit group. We look inward, believe in ourselves. We work every day to get better.”
“The key for us, I think we got to play together, both sides of the floor, be connected, help each other out on the defensive side of the ball. Offensively, share the ball. Play to our strengths, play within ourselves as well as be confident. Be fearless out there, not think about the moment too much as being in it.”
“I think the challenge they bring, they got a lot of individually good defenders. When they bring that all together, it’s physical, it’s athletic, it can switch to versatile. So it poses a problem as well on the offensive side of the ball, they have a lot of different guys who can make plays, score the ball, play off each other. They play a team game, so, those are the problems that we have to figure out and try get done.”
“[Gilgeous-Alexander’s] physically imposing. He’s sneakily quick. He has good change of pace. He has a feel for the game. He’s comfortable out there, and he’s a little unpredictable in the way he feels his timing.”
“I think he’s physical, he’s shifty, so he’s hard to kind of stay tight with, and then when you do, he bumps you, and as well as on top of that, he’s tall, he’s long, he can get those shots over top of a lot of defenders.”
“It’s nice. It’s good for the country. Good for the young guys looking up too. I know when I was younger, I was looking up to players in the league and seeing the possibility of me playing there, and it was always inspiring. So I think it’s good for the country.”
