Alex Dakin

Bærum Basket confirms to Dagbladet that their player Alex Dakin (27) passed away last night.

– We received the sad message today and we are all in shock. Alex was an incredibly loyal and helpful club player who went from being a slightly cautious kid to becoming a player for the national team. He was on the threshold of a greater career. But more than anything, he is the fantastic person Alex we remember today, coach Mathias Eckhoff tells Dagbladet.

– He was such a positive guy. It lit up the hall when he entered. He was a player and a person that everyone wanted to have on the team, continues Eckhoff, who is also the coach of the Norwegian team.

It was in December 2019 that doctors discovered that Dakin had a brain tumor.

In an interview with TV 2 earlier this year, Dakin recounted about the disease and the first symptoms that appeared, that he was unable to type messages correctly and felt a sound in the back of his ear.

Most recently, in late February, Dakin struggled while undergoing harsh cancer treatment.

– Pay tribute to Alex Dakin, who makes the trip to Trondheim, throws himself on the ground and plays while receiving treatment for cancer on a daily basis. A fucking gentleman and a role model for all young people. We applaud you, Alex. You are so strong, wrote basketball expert Magnus Barstad at the time.

Dakin’s health improved during the spring and summer.

– He almost had to learn to run again after the tough cancer treatment. But he worked really hard and came back. Everything seemed brighter after the summer. I was training, before I had a relapse and everything changed. After that, sadly, everything went awfully fast. We will all miss him dearly, and our thoughts go out to family, says Eckhoff.

Dakin was open about his illness. On the alex.dakin.recovery Instagram page, people could follow his daily struggle.

Bærum Basket informs Dagbladet that the club will hold a memorial service for Dakin in connection with the match against Kongsberg this weekend.