NBA TROPHY HAS MADE THE ROUNDS SINCE RAPTORS’ WIN

The Larry O’brien NBA Championship Trophy has not had a lot of rest since it became the one-year property of the Toronto Raptors.

It has been on the move since it left the Bay Area last June 14 and it’s still making the rounds.

First stop was Vegas with the bulk of the team and then a night in Los Angeles as the celebrations continued.

But the trophy’s first stop in Toronto was a hospital room where it helped bring some joy during a very tough time for the Altilia family.

John Altilia is the Raptors’ manager of team security. He is with the team wherever they happen to be during the season, but for the final two months of the championship year, he was working knowing his brother Tony was terminal.

An older brother by 10 years, Tony was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in the spring.

Upon arriving home following the celebrations in Vegas and Los Angeles, John got permission from the team to take the trophy to his brother’s hospital room.

“We all got emotional,” John said about that gathering with the whole family. The Raptors’ championship run had been a rallying point for them all.

That was stop No. 1 for the trophy upon its arrival in Toronto and the journey has continued ever since.

Less than two weeks later the trophy made the trek to Iowa, near the hometown of Raptors head coach Nick Nurse.

The Chicago trip was Nurse’s year-end coach’s retreat and overlapped that now-infamous clip of Nurse singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game during the seventh-inning stretch of a Cubs game.

A number of the players have had their turn with the trophy as well.

As long as you were part of the roster, you qualified for the honour of taking it home or to a spot of personal significance.

Team president Masai Ujiri had the hardware with him in Nigeria and Cameroon for his Basketball Without Borders tour. Pascal Siakam was on that trip as well, and counts that trip as his time with it. Veteran centre Marc Gasol hasn’t had any time to spend time with it due to his involvement with the FIBA World Cup.

The good news is the Raptors have the trophy for the remainder of the regular season, so there’s still time for Gasol and even Siakam, if he chooses, to take it home for a couple of days.

When Fred Vanvleet had his turn, the destination for the trophy was a no brainer. One of Rockford’s most famous exports, Vanvleet took the trophy home to Illinois in mid-july.