Ujiri dishes on all things Raptors
It was a blur of an off-season — 86 days exactly from the Raptors’ Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinal to the first day of team workouts today.
On the eve of their return to the court, Raptors president Masai Ujiri spent almost 40 minutes on Saturday bringing the local media up to date on the state of his team.
CONTRACT EXTENSIONS
Ujiri credibly claims things have been so busy relocating to Tampa that he has put his own contract extension talks on the back burner. He reports GM Bobby Webster’s deal is all but done and the rest of his staff are signed and delivered.
As for his own deal getting done sometime soon, Ujiri has this to say: “I don’t know what the time frame will be. I go into this thing with a very positive mind and attitude. And we hope it goes that way.”
STATUS OF DAVIS INVESTIGATION
To recap, Terence Davis was charged with multiple offences following an incident involving his girlfriend and their child, which included allegations of physical abuse in New York in late October. Davis is with the team in Tampa awaiting word from the NBA which is investigating the incident and will assess whatever punishment or suspension it deems suitable. Only after that, and presumably after the case is heard in court (first appearance is Dec. 11), will the Raptors weigh in.
That said, Ujiri says the Raptors are not sitting idly by while all this happens.
“We don’t condone anything that resembles what was alleged to have happened,” he said. “We would not do that in our organization. What we have is a certain amount of information where we have to wait until the NBA is done with the investigation. We feel comfortable. I’ll say this: we’ve done as much due diligence (as we can) in talking to Terence, in talking to our organization. We went as far as even talking to all the women in our organization and getting their point of view on this. This is very important for us because we don’t want to say one thing and go do another thing. We also have to respect the NBA and the players’ association and what they’re trying to do, and what they have to do with this. He’s with the team now. We wait until this decision or investigation or more information is had.”
CONFIDENCE IN PASCAL SIAKAM
“Honestly just seeing Pascal the past couple days here, I know it’s going to be different. He’s back enjoying himself and I saw him during the break also in Los Angeles and you can tell that he is not only learned from this experience but gone through that experience, I think, which is a big thing. So, I’m confident we’ll get our old Pascal back.”
SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT
“Now, we have to continue this conversation as we get back to our normal lives, we have to continue this conversation. And, go and make all the things that we talked about work, so all the coalitions, all the foundations, all these things that we’ve talked about and said we’re going to do, yeah we’re going to call people out when they don’t do them, and call ourselves out when we don’t do them … the buses played their role, right, the jerseys played their role, now it’s actually doing these things and seeing them happen and we have to be accountable. We have to continue to call out the things and injustices that are done in these countries and globally.”
POTENTIAL BREAKOUT FOR ANUNOBY
“We’ve believed in OG. To be honest, the year before (201819), not many people know what OG went through. I know he wouldn’t want me saying this, but OG and his dad are close to my heart. He went through a very real hard time with the death of his dad. And then he comes back and has, I think, an ankle sprain or a bad ankle injury. Then he gets through that and then has a busted appendix that keeps him out totally. Three things that really take him out of a significant part of the year. I think when he started to make progress last year, it was some sort of a surprise to everybody. But if you go back to his rookie year and all the excitement, OG was starting if we remember it right. There was plenty of excitement coming out of that. And he had this down year, not necessarily a down year but many things happened, but he comes back strong last year. I believe the progress is going to continue.”
COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE
“We want to win. We want to play basketball. So, whether we are in Naples, whether we are in a bubble in Orlando, whether we’re here, whether we’re coming back, we play sports to win. That’s what we do. That’s what we are trying to do. All of us believe in that. That is what we think about and we will keep thinking about it. You are going to have adversity. You are going to have things that get in the way, but we have that mindset as an organization and I’m really proud of them for this. Wherever we end up, home in Toronto, we love you guys there and we will do everything for you guys. We will do everything for Tampa. Wherever we are playing that Game 7, amen. We will try our best.”