Ujiri shifts focus to a global view
Raps president fears pandemic will decimate poorer regions, especially in his homeland
Raptors president Masai Ujiri’s view has always extended far beyond the NBA, and with the globe now gripped in the vise of a historic pandemic his first concern lies with the world, not his team.
He’d love to be figuratively living and dying with the fortunes of the Raptors as they prepare to defend their NBA championship — in the playoffs that were to begin two weeks from this coming weekend — because that’s his nature and his job and his passion. He can’t. So his horizons are broadened: beyond the games, beyond his adopted city, beyond the country where he lives.
He thinks of Africa, his homeland, and how to prevent the coronavirus from decimating a continent he loves, a world he wants to see survive this.
“It’s getting ahead of it, and I’m concerned,” Ujiri said in a wideranging conference call with basketball beat reporters Wednesday. “Hopefully the underprivileged areas like the refugee camps, the poorer areas, the not-so-privileged areas all over the world — not just Africa — are taken care of in this and are looked after in this.”
The basketball world that he usually inhabits has been turned upside down for weeks now, ever since the NBA became the first North American pro league to suspend its season in light of the pandemic. How it comes back, if it comes back, and what it looks like will all be decided in the future. In many ways, it’s the least of his worries right now.
“I’m hoping (the season can be salvaged),” he said in the halfhour discussion. “That’s all of our hope. We love our game and we love what we do.
“Honestly, for now, I think we salvage the NBA season by abiding by the rules and doing everything that we have to do as people, as a community, everything we possibly can. This is not about the NBA, NBA players, NBA fans. It’s about the whole world. This is something that hit globally.”
Ujiri spoke passionately, as he always does, about the need for societies to come together to wage this fight against what he called an “unseen enemy” that is ravaging the Earth. They can’t do it as they did when they came together to rally around his championship team last June — those days of millions of people lining a parade route are likely gone forever — but that same will and collective energy is something he sees as vital.
“This is global … and we all miss what we do and miss what we love, but I think this is now a time for us to stay together, pay attention to the rules and regulations, listen to the leaders, listen to experts with this pandemic,” he said.
“I know six, seven months ago, we brought the world together in a really special way and now I think it’s time we stick together, bring people together by staying apart.”
Ujiri’s days now run the gamut from helping with his daughter’s at-home education, playing with his younger son, and a constant barrage of video conference calls with members of his staff, top MLSE brass and a variety of NBA-related committees and calls he has to take part in.
It’s an odd existence for someone so used to the hustle and bustle and travel demands of a sports executive, and it’s taken some getting used to.
But coming out the other side unscathed, whatever that other side ultimately looks like, is what drives him. And what he wants to drive everyone.
The one personal project is his annual series of Giants of Africa camps for youths throughout the continent, teaching not only basketball but life skills. He is not at the point where this summer’s program has to be cancelled or postponed, and wants to take every moment possible before that decision is made because he knows how important the camps are.
“It’s a feel-good event and we plan it … but I think coming out of this, there’s always something small or something to do to give people hope, to give youth hope. And as long as we’re abiding by the rules and as long as we’ve paid attention to what the experts are saying, we’ve always gone by what makes people happy: How do we give youth hope in times like this?” said Ujiri, who grew up in Nigeria.
“I don’t want to say it’s easy to cancel, because it’s planning and all of that, but I think it’s an easy one for us to say we’ll move it to next year or we’ll move it one week further or we’ll do something. Right now we’re just concerned about people, about health, about listening to what the directions are going to be moving forward.” And doing right things. “I think there is also some good to spending time with family and slowing down. Maybe God tells us that the world was moving too fast and we need to slow down a little bit.
“This shall pass and we’ll get back to doing what we all do, but I think it’s really time to play by the rules, practise social distancing, washing our hands, being clean. There is going to be a new normal after all of this and we look forward to it. We look forward to getting back to real life, but for now we have to abide by the rules.”
“There is going to be a new normal after all of this and we look forward to it.”
MASAI UJIRI RAPTORS PRESIDENT