Ujiri’s indelible summer
Studying Obama, trading for Leonard, inspiring African girls — this is Masai’s moment
Masai Ujiri is in his office fiddling with the inch-wide bracelet on his right wrist. It’s red and tinged with green, with letters in white. MASAI.
“I got this from the Samburu girls,” says the president of the Toronto Raptors, and the founder of Giants of Africa foundation. “They made this for me. I think it’s so arrogant to wear your name, it is, but these girls practically put this on me. There are nine to 16, and they made this for me. I always turn it like this” — he fiddles with it, and turns the letters to the floor — “so it doesn’t look like I’m wearing my name. But the meaning for me is what it is.”
The Samburu girls wore bright pink dresses and were one highlight of Ujiri’s indelible summer. In its 15th year his Giants of Africa foundation ran camps for 450 players in six countries, and 150 of them were girls, the highest number ever for GOA. The Samburu girls in Kenya were young women kept away from traditional practices of child brides and genital mutilation; Ujiri spoke to local elders in support of that separation. Ujiri used to focus his camps on finding the next Giannis Antetokounmpo, the next Joel Embiid. It was a crooked mirror of his NBA quest for a special player, and the result were similarly slim.
Eventually he realized how many other kids there were, and shifted life skills into the equation, and now girls. That was a mirror of his other life, with the Raptors: As the Dallas Mavericks’ rotten culture was exposed, and the NBA pushes better gender practices, he had already pushed gender parity by simply being open to the best candidate; the result is women throughout the organization in positions that matter. GOA’s slogan is Dream Big — Kenya Dreams Big, Rwanda Dreams Big, La Loche Dreams Big. Giants of Africa is one of two deep passions for Ujiri. In a way, he is looking for himself. “There’s no question,” he says. “When I see where I grew up and how I grew up, I see some of the things that these kids have. I see some of the education that they have, I see some of the mentors that they have. And I feel that they could do more.
“I think all these kids are better. There are so many of them and you see so many, you can tell so many smart kids. But you have to find a niche, you have to find a passion — how are you following the game, and where is it going to lead? To some big opportunity. I didn’t think of big opportunity. I was dreaming big, but I was just following my passion so hard.
“Show more passion than ambition. People say, I want to be this, I want to
be that. How about just doing what you’re doing and another opportunity is going to come.”
Passion, ambition and eventual opportunity. That’s where he is. When he presented a video of his summer’s work to a specially invited audience at a rooftop Toronto hotel restaurant this week, Ujiri felt the way you might watching a video of your wedding, or your children as infants. Emotion clouded his voice.
“It comes back and you just start feeling it,” says Ujiri. “I wish that I could control it better, but I can’t.”
As the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors open the most interesting season in franchise history, Ujiri is not at a crossroads, and he is not on the precipice, and he is not hanging in the balance. He has built a strong and successful organization. He has built a team that won 59 games and failed, so he broke it apart and remade it after being swept by LeBron James over seven miserable days, again. Ujiri confronted coach Dwane Casey in the coaches’ room after Game 3 in Cleveland, in a heated verbal confrontation; it was the moment where everything finally broke for good.
“I don’t think you look at, it is seven days,” Ujiri says. “I think you look at, it is the opportunity of five years. And it had been five years. It came a time where I couldn’t continue doing the same thing.”
So Ujiri fired Casey and replaced him with assistant Nick Nurse, and traded cornerstone all-star DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard, the disgruntled San Antonio superstar. Ujiri was hanging out with Barack Obama in Nairobi and pacing sidewalks outside the hotel at 4 a.m. waiting to call DeRozan and fracture their relationship, and after all the messy “he said, he said” of it, the Raptors had the special player Ujiri has been waiting to get a crack at since the moment he walked in the door. Leonard could walk as a free agent next summer, but right now he’s a Raptor.
“Well to me, we’ve added a top-five player in the NBA,” Ujiri says, “which is significant.”
Raptors coaches and medical staff spent large parts of the summer in Los Angeles with Leonard; he appears healthy, and there have been no red flags. It sounded like he looked great, right? “Yes,” says Ujiri. Like Kawhi? “Yes,” says Ujiri. “Ready to kill.”
Ujiri tried to grow this summer, as a leader and a person. When he spent time with Obama opening a court in Kenya, he watched Obama closely and tried to learn from him. The way Obama makes people feel special, whether there are five or 25 people in the room; the way he comes out from his office to greet people. Leadership. Details. Little things. How you can change the world, little bit by little bit.
He also employs a New Yorkbased leadership consultant that he talks to three times a week, for up to an hour, and she tries to expand his thinking, to sharpen his goals and his habits. Part of the result of that was entrusting more to second-year general manager Bobby Webster, who handled a lot of the summer communication with Leonard and his people. Empower good people and it makes everything better. Like Obama, he wants to make people feel powerful, and special.
Leonard might be destined for his hometown of L.A.; if he leaves, the window of championship contention closes, leaving good young players and another climb. If he stays, the window is open. The Clippers are in Los Angeles and have NBA legend Jerry West. Toronto has what it has. Huge stakes.
And all the Raptors can do is be the organization they are, in the city they inhabit. The franchise is the culmination of everything Ujiri has built in his five years here — the roster, the coaching staff with its new head coach, the medical staff, the front office, the culture, every decision on an employee or a policy. And nobody knows what Kawhi Leonard really wants yet.
“I think we will find out as we get to know him, and that’s why you have to be who you are,” says Ujiri, “so he gets comfortable. So if there are things he doesn’t like, you try and figure them out. And that’s the way to do it because if you are faking and faking and trying to be something other than what you are … when I say that it’s not a matter of not changing anything for him, maybe there are things that will change to get better.
“They all need different love, they all have different personalities, and he’s a top player, you know?” Ujiri says. “This is a phenomenal player, and I always say if it doesn’t work out I’m not gonna hide under the table and cry.
“This is what we have now. We have this phenomenal player, we have this unique opportunity. I think there is excitement.”
He fiddles with his wrist again. Masai Ujiri keeps evolving, and growing, and may finally have arrived at a moment commensurate with the scale of his passion and his ambition. He has built up his foundation and those ambitions. And he has built up his team. Masai Ujiri has always hoped that enough small things can lead to big things. His biggest season is coming. Masai dreams big.