Ujiri maps out plan for young Raptors

It was easy to draw parallels between Masai Ujiri’s long-awaited “I’m staying” media conference on Wednesday and another held a little over seven years ago.

At the first in-person gathering of the Toronto basketball media since March of 2020, Ujiri, now the Raptors vice-chairman, in addition to its president and chief decision maker, made it clear the direction the team is heading. First of all, the part that was different, because there wasn’t a global pandemic back in 2013: They’re coming back to play in Toronto.

“We have no interest, we have not looked elsewhere, we are not going to look elsewhere, we’re playing at home; we’re trying to play at home. That’s the goal for us,” Ujiri said.

“I told (MLSE co-owner Larry Tanenbaum) and (NBA commissioner Adam Silver) and even Prime Minister Trudeau that playing away set us back a couple of years ... Playing another year somewhere else will set us back five years. We are not trying to do that,” Ujiri said.

With that clear, Ujiri discussed where his franchise is in terms of being able to compete.

Back in December of 2013, having just dispatched Rudy

Gay, signalling the start of an apparent rebuild, Ujiri had said “We will not be trapped in the middle (of the pack in the NBA) ... We will not be stuck in no man’s land.”

The goal was to add through the top of the draft and keep developing the likes of Jonas Valanciunas, Terrence Ross and Demar Derozan. But when the group overachieved and actually benefitted from the Gay deal and seeing a Kyle Lowry trade fall through, Ujiri and his staff regrouped, ended up doing elite work picking much later in drafts than they’d anticipated and the Raptors went on a run of seven straight playoff appearances, culminating in the acquisitions of Kawhi Leonard, Marc Gasol Serge Ibaka and Danny Green and the 2018-19 NBA championship.

Ujiri has long said his goal is to bring another title to Toronto and now we have an idea of how he plans to do it. They got Scottie Barnes with the fourth pick, a benefit, ironically, of moving up from right in the middle of the lottery by the luck of the ping pong balls. He remains sky-high on 24-year-old forward OG Anunoby, gave a strong endorsement of Pascal Siakam and raved about the team’s new leader, Fred Vanvleet, as well as the potential of others like Malachi Flynn, Chris Boucher, Precious Achiuwa, Gary Trent and veteran centre Khem Birch. The defensive potential and the chance to zig while the rest of the NBA zags appeals to the Raptors. The league is offence-crazy right now, so the Raptors will go a different way. Some teams have loaded up with aging all-stars. The Raptors know they can’t match up with them anytime soon, so they have their eyes firmly set a few years down the line.

It’s why they amicably moved on from franchise icon Lowry.

“It’s been really tough for us to see an incredible player like that go,” Ujiri said. “I had really extensive conversations with Kyle ... and we knew this was coming. The direction of our team was kind of going younger and Kyle still has his incredible goals (of competing for another title soon),” Ujiri said.

“Kyle wanted to be here too if that was what we were trying to do. We saw our team as kind of being in the middle ground a little bit and wanted to go a little younger so we can start to grow, almost like when Kyle was here in the beginning.”

So they’ll dig down a bit into the foundation, maybe add one or two more crucial pieces via the draft and then aim to make a quick ascent back to the summit.

Can it work? Possibly. Ujiri’s certainly energized and eager to try. He will have his hands full, his explanation of how busy he will be with new and existing off-court endeavours thanks to his job title upgrade was indication of that, but he’s also still focused on what needs to be done on the court.

“We are going to create our own direction. We don’t have to go with the wave of what the NBA is doing, we are such a copycat league ... and we have to, I think, right now, ride opportunities and for now our opportunities are I think building around the young players that we have,” Ujiri said.

“We have very young veterans, they are almost at the same age when we had Kyle and Demar.”