Bruce Arthur
The purple dinosaur crew, the team whose stars left because of no ESPN, or the weather, or the peacock colours of the foreign money, or whatever else you wanted to give as an excuse … they’re the champs. Because Masai Ujiri figured it out
Even in the bad times, in private or in public, he would say it like it was a mantra, an article of his faith: We will win here. We will figure it out.
The mentality of Canadian basketball fans was always a source of consternation to Masai Ujiri, a mystery: Why so prone to defeatism? Why so insecure? Why were they conditioned to expect the worst, no matter what?
I would always tell him, experience. It was what they knew.
The Toronto Raptors are the NBA champions, and it doesn’t feel real, does it? The Toronto Raptors, the purple dinosaur crew, the team whose stars left because of no ESPN, or the weather — as if there isn’t winter weather in New York, Chicago, Boston, all over — or the peacock colours of the foreign money, or curling on TV, or taxes or the metric system or whatever else you wanted to give as an excuse … they’re the champs. The Raptors. They won. And the architect is Masai Ujiri.
After Game 6 against Milwaukee, as the paroxysms of joy and chaos still rang through the basement hallways of Scotiabank Arena, Ujiri sat alone in the nondescript room across from the locker-room and scrolled through his phone. He had texts rolling in, so many, congratulations from friends and family and colleagues and the occasional president. Like a wedding, where everyone wants to send their love. “This is huge,” he said, softly. “This is huge. These guys are fighters.” He was asked: How do you feel? Ujiri said, I can’t describe it. He doesn’t speak publicly often, but Ujiri is a natural, exuberant orator. He was nearly speechless.
July 10, 2013: Traded Andrea Bargnani to New York for Marcus Camby, Steve Novak, Quentin Richardson, a 2014 secondround pick, a 2016 first-round pick (Jakob Poeltl) and a 2017 second-round pick.
Masai Ujiri didn’t grow up in Zaria, Nigeria, as a basketball fan. He played soccer. He had to cross basketball courts to reach his preferred soccer fields, and one day he stayed. A local coach spirited him NBA VHS Tapes — Akeem Olajuwon at the University of Houston, back when he was Akeem, but most notably, Michael Jordan’s Come Fly With Me.
It was the first of a thousand connections, a thousand strokes of luck, that along with Ujiri’s bold and fearless nature took him from Nigeria to here. He went from being an unpaid scout for the Orlando Magic, sleeping on floors and couches, to a paid scout for the Denver Nuggets, to Toronto’s director of global scouting under Bryan Colangelo, to the GM of the Nuggets. He had to trade his franchise player, starting on the first day.
But the Nuggets, owned by a man worth somewhere north of $8 billion U.S., wanted to control costs. Tim Leiweke, a fellow big dreamer, spirited Ujiri out of the Rockies. The day he was hired in Toronto Ujiri said, “This is a stage I’ve wanted all my life.”
December 9, 2013: Traded Rudy Gay, Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray to Sacramento for John Salmons, Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes.
So many things have to go right in a life, or in a franchise. When the Raptors traded Rudy Gay to Sacramento, they were the only team interested. When he tried to trade Kyle Lowry to New York the same year, the Knicks — already pantsed by the Andrea Bargnani deal — were trigger-shy. Sometimes you get lucky. The Raptors became an accidental playoff team, and Ujiri shouted to the thousands in Jurassic Park outside the arena, F--BROOKLYN! He had fieldtested it with a crowd of season-ticket holders a few moments before and decided the pop was worth it. Toronto lost in seven.
They would get swept in 2015 by Washington and head coach Dwane Casey nearly got fired. LaMarcus Aldridge took a call, but wouldn’t commit to a visit as a free agent. Ujiri said, “I’m going to fight for my team. We want to compete. We want to win. We want to win in Toronto. We want to be a winning team. We want to be relevant out there. Our end goal is to win a championship.”
June 25, 2015: Selected Delon Wright 20th overall in the NBA draft.
June 25, 2015: Traded Greivis Vasquez to Milwaukee for Norman Powell and a 2017 first-round pick (OG Anunoby).
Leiweke literally planned the parade when he ran Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. How long has that been the joke in this hockey town, and across the country? The Leafs won a couple: plan the parade. Leiweke planned the parade with the hockey team in mind, by the way. Not the Raptors.
Ujiri kept trying. They ran to the conference final, barely escaping Indiana, then Miami, then losing in six to Cleveland and LeBron James. It was the best season in franchise history; Toronto had never won a best-of-seven playoff series before, and then won two. And Ujiri said, “In my position, when I look at it, I know everybody says you should be proud of the season. I go home, my wife says, ‘You should be proud of the season,’ and I say thank you to be a good husband.”
June 23, 2016: Selected Jakob Poeltl ninth overall and Pascal Siakam 27th overall in the NBA draft.
July 14, 2016: Signed DeMar DeRozan to a five-year, $139million U.S. contract.
July 18, 2016: Signed undrafted free agent Fred VanVleet to a two-year, two-way contract for the NBA minimum.
February 14, 2017: Traded Terrence Ross and a 2017 firstround pick to Orlando for Serge Ibaka.
February 23, 2017: Traded Jared Sullinger and two second-round picks to Phoenix for P.J. Tucker.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to go all in at mid-season but he did, Ujiri took the blame after the season. He wondered if mid-season trades were worth the risk.
“We need, after that performance, we need a culture reset here,” said Ujiri. “We need to figure it out. Yes, there’s been some success, but at the end of the day we are trying to win a championship here. To me making the playoffs is nothing.
“We need to figure out how to beat these guys. That’s our job. That’s what we are going to try and figure out. Whether it’s now or in the future, I have to figure that out.”
See? He always said that.
July 7, 2017: Signed Kyle Lowry to a three-year, $93-million U.S. contract.
July 7, 2017: Signed Serge Ibaka to three-year, $65-million U.S. contract.
Before he re-signed Lowry and Ibaka, Ujiri considered letting the kids have the run of the place. Before re-signing, Lowry had spent three months telling people he was leaving and had he found a different home, DeRozan would likely have been traded, too. Before the Kawhi deal, there was talk of trading DeRozan to the Clippers for their two latelottery picks; the Clippers cut the talks off.
They won an Eastern Conference-high 59 games in 2018 and the Cavaliers swept them again, and after LeBron’s Game 3 running winner Ujiri charged into the coach’s room, yelling, furious. That was the end of that. He agonized, though, before firing Casey. He passed on Mike Budenholzer. He hired Nick Nurse. He wasn’t 100-per-cent sure, but he believed in Nurse. He liked that he wasn’t scared.
Then came Kawhi. Ujiri was in Kenya, the country of his mother, to open a basketball court with former president Barack Obama. During Ujiri’s tenure he has honoured Nelson Mandela, used his platform to fight for the Nigerian girls abducted by Boko Haram, advocated for the youth of Africa with his Giants of Africa foundation, pushed hiring women in powers of prominence in sports, reached out to and tried to help the First Nations kids in La Loche whose school was traumatized by a school shooting, railed against Donald Trump’s racism, and more. He is a man in the world.
Ujiri had been keeping an eye out for stars of varying brightness for years. He monitored whether Sacramento’s DeMarcus Cousins would ever grow up. He checked in on Blake Griffin, then a Clipper. He missed the window on Kyrie Irving. He wondered about Kevin Durant. Durant’s interest, through intermediaries, sank a lot faster than the Raptors allowed it to semi-publicly float. There were more.
Ujiri had built up the frontoffice — Bobby Webster, Teresa Resch, Dan Tolzman, more and more, an organization to be proud of — added the G League team and the practice facility, hired the best people he could find, stockpiled assets. He stayed ready.
May 11, 2018: Fired Dwane Casey as head coach.
June 13, 2018: Hired Nick Nurse as head coach.
July 6, 2018: Signed Fred VanVleet to a two-year, $18-million U.S. contract.
July 18, 2018: Traded DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a 2019 first-round pick to San Antonio for Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green and cash.
February 7, 2019: Traded Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright, C.J. Miles and a 2024 second-round pick to Memphis for Marc Gasol.
Ujiri traded for Kawhi in the middle of the night. He called DeMar from a sidewalk in Nairobi. Lowry wouldn’t speak to Ujiri until February. But the superstar was here. Ujiri said, “We’ve been doing this for how many years? You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again, and when you get a chance to get a top-five player — which isn’t very often — I think you have to jump on it.”
Kawhi could leave after a year, sure. Kawhi hadn’t wanted Toronto. But Ujiri bet on everything he had built, and then bet some more. He wasn’t sure about adding Gasol in mid-season. He thought he was going to get Nik Mirotic from New Orleans, and when he didn’t he called Memphis back. You only get so many chances at a championship. When Toronto won Game 4 in Oakland to go up three games to one Ujiri stood on the court at Oracle Arena and watched the hundreds of Raptors fans still there chanting “C-B-C!” and “We The North.” Ujiri stood alone in the middle of thousands of people, and he watched. He was asked later what he was thinking and he said, “I wasn’t.” He was just experiencing it, committing it to his remarkable memory. He wanted to feel it. Some moments, you have to feel.
Real life will come fast. He was allegedly involved in a minor altercation at the end of Game 6 with a sheriff’s deputy; that will need to be figured out. Thursday night Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported the Washington Wizards would ask for permission to speak to Ujiri with the intention of offering a massive deal worth $10 million U.S. per year, plus a path to a muchcoveted ownership share.
Ujiri’s contract runs through 2021 at several million less, and when asked about it ownership partner Larry Tanenbaum said, “I know Masai. He’s like my son. There’s no chance he’s leaving Toronto … I think if you ask Masai he’s got everything he wants.” Ujiri would need to break his contract, but Tanenbaum may want to double-check the math on that.
He is atop the world now. In the champagne-soaked locker room he said, “To be honest, as soon as we got one of the best players in the world, you knew you had a chance. I’ll tell you what, so many things have come together, and it takes a lot of luck, too.”
Masai Ujiri, child of the continent, son of Africa, father of two and dreamer of big dreams, won here.
He figured it out. And Raptors fans got to live it, to remember it, to feel every moment.
Now, it’s what they know.