Doug Smith
Masai Ujiri touched on this briefly late Thursday night in the chaos of the Raptors locker room and as we reflect on what this franchise is, what it means and what it represents, it remains one of the greater aspects of this most wonderful tale.
And it could very well be the best part of the legacy of this group that brought together a city, a region, a country in a lovely two-month ride to the NBA championship. It is the world. The guy from Cameroon, the fellow from Spain, the Italianborn assistant coach, the bloke from the Republic of Congo, the Americans, the African team president, the Montreal native who was born in Saint Lucia. Know what else it is? It’s Toronto. It’s a bit cliché, but all these years later, through three distinct eras, we have arrived at a time when the Raptors, more than any other professional sports team it’s been a pleasure to chronicle, truly represent the city they represent.
As Ujiri was talking, the parties were raging across the GTA and they were just the same as the one going on in the plastic-draped Oracle Arena locker-room.
“I look at where everybody’s from, from all over the world in our organization, and I think it means something to the world to bring a championship to a team that’s outside of America,” Ujiri said.
And in Jurassic Park back home, and up and down Yonge St., from Ajax to Burlington and from Lake Ontario to the northernmost edge of the region, the scene was as it was in Oakland.
Different cultures, different backgrounds, North Americans, South Americans, Asians, Europeans, Caribbeans, men, women, children.
Myriad faces, myriad colours, myriad stories, all coming together to celebrate a team and a city and the alwayschanging society in which we live.
It has been a long trip and a crazy-good one and it’s like the trip we’ve all been on since that first game in 1995.
There have been three different segments to this journey, some of us have experienced them all and it’s a source of great pride to have gone through it.
Almost a quarter of a century ago — and that sounds a lot longer than 24 years, doesn’t it? —the Raptors were a curiosity as much as anything.
There was a hardcore group of dedicated basketball followers who knew the game and players and the history of the game to that point and they were excited. They were also in the minority. The NBA was loud and it was electric, there were dancing dinosaurs and dancing women and men, music blared even as the game was being played and, boy, it most certainly was not hockey.
But it began something, something fascinating. It began the growth of a game the city and the country have come to embrace and it was the first wave.
Damon Stoudamire, Isiah Thomas, Zan Tabak and Ed Pinckney and all of those guys were in Toronto and they were in your face and an era of kids who had no idea what the NBA was slowly started to come around. The team might not have been any good but it was here and it was new and you could slowly sense portions of the city coming around to it.
And then about five years later, five long years of slogging it out near the bottom of heap, came Vince Carter, Vinsanity and Air Canada — and success. Playoffs, global attention and a second wave of young athletes were caught up in it. Baskets started showing up at the end of driveways in more places than many ever imagined and a generation of players was spawned that now represents Canada in the NBA in a way that’s second only to the United States in pure numbers.
But now this team is creating a third wave. It’s been more than a decade since Carter left and some of the excitement and attention left with him. And it’s been a decade of change in Toronto, change that reflects the multicultural aspect of the region we call home.
Who knows what this group will create, what kind of interest will be sparked in Canadians by the likes of Ujiri and Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, Chris Boucher and Kyle Lowry.
You cannot be what you cannot see and a new generation of Canadians can now see a truly global team representative of the society that they live in and they can see it thrive.
It will be the lasting legacy of this championship squad, that youngsters new to the sport and perhaps new to the country will want to emulate those who truly represent their lives and their culture.
That is one of the very best parts of this incredible journey.
“I look at where everybody’s from, from all over the world in our organization, and I think it means something to the world to bring a championship to a team that’s outside of America.” MASAI UJIRI RAPTORS PRESIDENT