Ongoing Mystery of Masai: Is he staying or going?
Raptors’ exec isn’t showing his cards
Masai Ujiri has been on the national news, on Good Morning America, and prominent in newspapers talking openly and honestly about the assault that took place 20 months ago on the night the raptors won the NBA championship.
What he has barely said anything about the past three months — living in Florida with his displaced team, separated from his family — is the state of the raptors, the future of Kyle Lowry, the internal COVID-19 issues with the coaching staff and Pascal Siakam and, maybe more important than anything else, his impending future with the basketball team.
This is the most detached publicly the raptors’ president of basketball operations has been in his remarkable run of eight seasons in Toronto. This is the least accessible he has ever been. And with his contract expiring at the end of the season, Ujiri has left his future open to speculation of all kinds.
does he want to leave the raptors? does he want to go to another team, another market? does he want to depart the NBA? Are there other jobs in other places that are more attractive to him? Ujiri has always had a multitude of interests beyond basketball.
The truth: he isn’t saying. he is playing the private game. you can listen from the outside, connect the dots and hear what Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, has said more than once: “Masai isn’t going anywhere.”
If I’m guessing, and that’s all it is right now, I’m in agreement with Tanenbaum. Maybe Masai isn’t going anywhere.
But why the secrecy? Why the intrigue? Why hasn’t a deal been done yet to keep the most successful sporting executive in Toronto history in place?
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. shouldn’t be applauded for losing 30 to 35 pounds coming into this season. he should have been derided for playing his first two bigleague seasons — neither of which was particularly successful — while being hugely overweight ... Some ballplayers can be enormous — cecil Fielder and son Prince Fielder to name two — and still hit. And Pablo Sandoval didn’t do badly with a big belly with the San Francisco Giants ... Mark Shapiro has been granted five more years with the Blue Jays but so far no extensions for GM ross Atkins or manager charlie Montoyo ... has Mike Babcock finished his “I’m not a bad guy” tour yet? It is annoying ... honest, I can’t see anyone beating the Tampa Bay Lightning in a best-ofseven series. They have the best goaltender in the NHL and the best defenceman.
That’s a tough combination to get through.
For so many, it has become the soundtrack of our summers: Baseball on the radio. The personal relationship that builds between local announcers, who we often never meet yet consider to be part of the family.
So many of us grew up on Tom and Jerry, or grew old listening to them, not the cartoon or the movie that is currently out, but the storytelling baseball voices of Tom cheek and Jerry howarth — that became so much a part of our lives.
We listened over dinner, or outside by the pool. We listened when barbecuing, when sitting on the deck at the cottage, when driving in the car. It’s the only sport that can be better on radio, easier to understand, than on any other medium.
And now the rogers people — communications experts that they are — who own the team and own the broadcast rights, who spent huge money this off-season to make the Blue Jays more attractive, have gone on the cheap this baseball season.
They have chosen to simulcast their games on TV and radio. They have made an annoying and unnecessary cost-cutting decision. They have taken a historical baseball nuance and cheapened it for no meaningful reason at all.
year after year and honour after honour, Tom Watt somehow gets forgotten.
he was co-coach of the canadian Olympic hockey team in 1980 with clare drake and Lorne davis. drake is in the hockey hall of Fame and has the Order of hockey in canada and is in the canada Sports hall of Fame.
Watt is not a member of any of those clubs.
drake won six national championships coaching at the University of Alberta. Watt won nine national championships coaching at the University of Toronto.
Watt coached three teams in parts of seven seasons in the NHL, including winning the coach of the year award with the Winnipeg Jets. drake never coached in the NHL, although had a short run in the WHA with the Edmonton Oilers.
As an assistant coach, Watt was part of the 1989 calgary Flames Stanley cup team and several times was involved with canada cup teams and other national teams.
drake was an amazing man and is deserving of every accolade he has received in hockey.
Watt has been every bit as accomplished and in a win and loss kind of way, at a higher level, more successful than drake.
he isn’t in the hall of Fame, unless you want to count the Etobicoke hall of Fame. he isn’t in the canada Sports hall of Fame. he hasn’t won the Order of hockey canada.
The former Maple Leafs coach is absolutely deserving of all of those honours.