Kansas City offers to adopt Raptors for season
If the Raptors aren't able to play in Toronto this season, they have a standing invitation to make a “temporary home” in Kansas City.
The offer was formally extended in a letter sent to NBA commissioner Adam Silver that Kansas City's mayor, Quinton D. Lucas, shared on Tuesday. The letter was co-signed by three U.S. senators.
“Our dynamic fans would be thrilled to adopt the team as our own,” the officials said of the Raptors to the commissioner.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Canada instituted emergency orders mandating 14-day quarantines for everyone entering the country.
While that meant the Toronto Blue Jays were forced to play their home games this year in Buffalo, the Raptors initially did not need to seek their own venue to host visiting teams in the U.S. because the NBA had all of its participating teams finish their seasons in a bubble near Orlando, Fla.
For the upcoming season, however, the NBA doesn't appear to be planning to sequester all its teams in one location, creating a potential problem for the Raptors.
Lucas and his fellow politicians were happy to offer a solution, touting Kansas City's recent successes in football, soccer and baseball.
Also very much on board with the idea of luring the 2019 NBA champions to the Paris of the Plains: Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
The reigning Super Bowl MVP and 2018 NFL MVP on Monday replied to a Twitter post about the possibility of the Raptors playing in Louisville by tweeting, “Bring them to KC!”