Raps notes: Not Russell again
Wayne Embry, the eminence grise of the Toronto Raptors, sits courtside as training camp unfolds and looks out over 20 NBA players, each with varying degrees of guaranteed money, tended to by an attentive staff to deal with their every whim.
They travelled from Toronto in the lap of chartered aircraft luxury and are housed in a first-class hotel where the staff can’t do enough for them and the view of the mountains and the ocean, stunning and relaxing, are a perfect antidote for workday stress.
They will practise a couple of times one day, one time on other days, with a somewhat leisurely roll of five pre-season games stretched over 13 days.
Embry soaks it all in and laughs as he recalls his first NBA training camp — 60 years ago this fall with the Cincinnati Royals.
“When I got to camp, it was very physical, we were competing,” the senior adviser to the Raptors said. “We fought. I think the very first practice I was in, there was three fights, guys competing for positions.”
Embry would go on to play 831 NBA games over 11 seasons with Cincinnati, Boston and Milwaukee in a hall-of-fame career. He was the NBA’s first AfricanAmerican general manager when he assumed that role in 1972, he was twice named the league’s executive of the year and he has worked with the Raptors in an advisory capacity since 2004, also serving as the interim general manager between the Rob Babcock and Bryan Colangelo eras.
In his 60th camp, the memories flood back. “After four or five days of training camp, we got in cars and drove from Columbus, Ohio, up to Boston and played 17 exhibition games in 18 days, driving throughout New England,” he said. “So my first year, I went up against Bill Russell 17 nights in 18 days. Welcome to the NBA.”