Toronto – Forget its official title, which subtly changed occasionally, during its 12 years in charge of the Raptors of Toronto. Masai Ujiri was the president of Vibes.
Do not minimize the team consolidation work he did with the franchise, because much of this was excellent. Most moments of Ujiri signature with Raptors, however, can be captured with its liners:
“F— Brooklyn.”
“We do not give-on this subject,” he said about the train of Paul Pierce.
“We will win in Toronto.”
“Believe in this city. Believe in yourself.”
“We will win Again in Toronto. “”
Ujiri won his press conferences.
For raptors and their fans, it was significant. In a league defined by star players and glamorous markets, the Raptors needed someone who released the confidence of the team and a city that should be considered as a world class. The fact that Ujiri treated the work of raptors as a big one, and frankness as a cornerstone of the potential league, was new. Ujiri was sweating confidence and ambition.
Announcing Ujiri shoots Friday – And yes, the shot is the right word – the raptors also seem to be drifting and unstable as they have done for a long time. The CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Keith Pelley, explained this decision by saying that Ujiri’s mandate was long, the change is inevitable and that the franchise is stable with the rest of its structure with a front-office, its coaching staff and its large-part list. It would make sense, except that all of this would be a reason to keep the person who authorized these conditions. Instead, Pelley and Edward Rogers, the executive president of the MLSE board of directors, introduced a new level of uncertainty to the team.
The piece of inevitability was on the point, especially in this case: Ujiri and Rogers, who emerged as the most powerful person in the organization when His business bought Bell To become the majority shareholder of MLSE last year, do not have a good relationship. Ujiri and Larry Tanenbaum, the long -standing electric broker in Mlse, are very close. Meanwhile, Rogers was the strongest objector that the Raptors gave Ujiri a new five -year agreement in 2021. Ujiri said that his relationship with Rogers was good and not an obstacle for him several times since the change in property structure, but that has never sounded completely.
It turns out that Ujiri was able to serve four of these years. Rogers probably wanted to strengthen a descending power structure, and Ujiri would never feel so indebted to Rogers as a new rental would do. However, this decision will invite cynicism and the doubt of fans of Raptors, in particular given the strange moment of the decision and the rating Q of Rogers.
“When you create a brand, when you create a culture, if it is attenuated when this person is no longer involved, then culture and the brand were not created in the right way,” said Pelley when he was asked if he was concerned about the loss of raptors leaving Ujiri. “And I believe that the way he built the brand and the way he created culture is something that we, as an organization of Mlse Cherish and that we must now rely, and it will be something critical for the next president.”
Pelley said he and Ujiri have been talking about the future of the executive for a few months. According to Pelley, Ujiri asked that he be able to manage the project if a change was finally going to be carried out, even if the franchise extended the contracts of the managing director Bobby Webster, deputy managing director Dan Tolzman and would seek to hire a new president, a role for which webster will be interviewed. Pelley said the new president will focus only on basketball, not business.
Admittedly, all this is strange, Pelley saying only that Ujiri was informed of the change earlier in the month. It is not as if Mlse could not have made an argument based on the results to go to a new direction. This is simply not as Pelley formulated things – probably for obvious reasons.
One of these reasons: the 2019 Raptors Championship will live forever, and Ujiri is rightly loved for having brought Toronto its first major championship since the Blue Jays won consecutive titles of the World Series in 1992 and 1993. (The Toronto FC of MLS, Toronto Argonauts de CFL and the Toronto championship, among others, and raptors years.).
The risk of trade for Kawhi Leonard is perhaps overestimated – the Raptors, led by Demar Derozan, Kyle Lowry and Dwane Casey, had intimately familiarized their ceiling in recent years – but even admitting that it was time to try something new and import a star who did not want to be in Toronto. Ujiri needed luck, some of whom of a particularly friendly cylinder, so that the Raptors could capitalize on this one year window, but luck is always part of the equation. This Leonard has always returned home after this year to play for clippers Pid Ujiri, but that made the title even more miraculous with hindsight, since Leonard was not all on the franchise.
This banner is as much as that of others. Before the recent series of parity of the League, winning a title in a relatively second level market and without local superstar was considered one of the most difficult things to do in North American professional sports. Ujiri assembling this team will be one of the greatest exploits in the history of sport in the city. Bringing a game of stars and an excellent training installation in Toronto will further improve its heritage.
Raptors fans will always remember Masai Ujiri for bringing a championship to Toronto. (Sergio Estrada / USA today)
He clearly wanted to establish the raptors as a marquee franchise, and this is where Ujiri failed. In all honesty, it is very difficult to do. In Low Ebbs, even Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Boston Celtics could not sit with the best available players. These teams have fewer obstacles to find this status at any time, but no team has a permanent card “we are special”.
However, Ujiri leaving at this stage must be difficult for him, because the post-championship race of the Raptors has been a bumpy. His pursuit of Giannis Antetokounmpo almost immediately followed this championship race, because, after Leonard’s departure, the Raptors refused to conclude multi -year contracts, keeping the possibility of putting the star of Bucks in Toronto alive. Antetokounmpo has never reached the free agency, signing two extensions with Milwaukee in the meantime. Ujiri and Antetokounmpo have a close relationship, and the Raptors could always try to trade for him if the Bucks make him available, but they will no longer have Ujiri to sell the franchise.
We do not know how much Ujiri has ever been able to do it within the League, even if he won the team’s fans with his passion. With the memory of Leonard’s commerce (and his rapid departure) which persists, the Raptors were considered several times as a candidate for black horses for many unhappy stars – Kevin during (several times) and Damian Lillard, to name only a few. Due to a combination of not having enough assets and not to arouse the interest of the stars, Ujiri could not take his second memorable hack at home. At the time and now, Brandon Ingram’s trade in February looked like A pale and pale imitation of such a gambit.
That he could not keep the last remains of the nucleus of the Raptors and Happy Championship should also hang on to Ujiri. He could never understand what happened as teams led by Pascal Siakam, Fred Vanvleet, Og Anunoby and Nick Nursed. It was his work to keep the group United, and many important franchise figures left the city with wounded feelings (but new contracts).
In that spirit, Ujiri leaves the raptors in a place where he promised that they would never be when he took the post for the first time in 2013 – the pasty environment of the league. Pelley “stability” quoted frequently is an understatement for something much more overwhelming. The Raptors are expensive for a team that has not played a eliminatory match since 2022 and lack of Surefire star, not to mention a superstar. Ujiri has promised a patient reconstruction after the departures of Siakam and Anunoby two seasons ago, but the raptors became quickly impregnated. There are reasons of optimism, but Ujiri leaves the raptors without a clear star of the north.
However, Ujiri provided ambition insurance for Raptors fans. Under Ujiri, the Raptors could fail, but they would target the summit. On the other hand, Rogers would have Was a leading voice in preventing MLSE from acquiring a team of expansion WNBA, finally brought to Toronto with Tanenbaum at the helm. Rogers’ disgust for the Ujiri agreement in 2021 also has concerns, even if you were more skeptical about the history of Ujiri than most of the league. Coaching and front-office contracts do not count against the ceiling and the luxury tax, and are among the clearest ways that a franchise can exceed its competition without facing consequences to consolidate.
There were basketball reasons for the dismissal, but keeping the rest of his team in place suggests that basketball was not at the top of the decision. Mlse, in his current iteration, will have to show fans that he is ready to attack victory in the same way as Ujiri has preached. Otherwise, foreigners will rightly characterize the new ownership group as more concerned with the benefits than victories.
It could never be said about Ujiri. He wanted to win with Raptors, sometimes too bad. Both his approach could be noble and myopic. You never had to guess what guided him, however.
(Photo: Melissa Tamez / NBAE via Getty Images)
