This is a story about how the cousins (who were more like brothers) pushed each other to reach the pinnacle of basketball, competing on the hardwood every day and getting the best out of each other as they learned difficult lessons along the way.

N ickeil Alexander-Walker was born in Toronto 52 days after Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and raised by his mother, Nicole Alexander, and her brother — Shai’s dad, Vaughn.

The cousins became inseparable before they could even speak, sleeping in the same beds, playing on the same basketball teams, sharing meals, calling each other on the phone to talk about their dreams, and quickly becoming more like twins than first cousins.

“I feel like me and him are as close as you can get,” Alexander-Walker says. “To have that bond and to go through the same thi

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