Eulogizing the Masai Ujiri era with the Raptors

Masai Ujiri conquered the world. He didn’t weep because there were no more worlds to conquer. He wept because his celebration was tainted. But he took a team in the Toronto Raptors that before him was a backwater, an oversight, and made it into the model of the league. Year in, year out, the Raptors won games. Until they finally won the whole thing.

That would have been a terrific end to his story. But instead, Ujiri spent another half decade with the Raptors, and it was far more mixed. Then with an ownership change last year, and Ujiri’s strongest supporters in ownership leaving, it was clear that the writing was on the wall for Ujiri in Toronto. You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. Now Ujiri is gone.

The day after the draft, too. Two days after Ujiri was one of the first people who welcomed new draftee Collin Murray-Boyles to Toronto. Even if the move isn’t incredibly surprising in the aggregate, the specifics of the timing is shocking. We will wait for more information about what truly happened over the last 48 hours.

But we don’t have to wait for is certainty that Ujiri’s tenure is done. It is. There is fear of course that Toronto goes back to wandering in the desert, as it did before Ujiri rescued the franchise. The team reports that Ujiri’s staff, including Bobby Webster, will remain in place as the team searches for a new President. We will see as that all unfolds.

For now, let’s remember Ujiri.

In only Ujiri’s first season with the Raptors, 2013-14, the team skyrocketed to 48 wins behind the unlikely magic of Kyle Lowry. Ujiri didn’t rest on his laurels. He traded Andrea Bargnani for a pick that became Jakob Poeltl. He traded away Rudy Gay for a player who, next season, eventually was flipped to the Milwaukee Bucks for Norman Powell and a pick that became OG Anunoby. That is the type of trade from which championships can (and did) bloom.

At this point, Ujiri’s heater absolutely took off. He was on a hot streak gamblers only dream of. The following draft, he added Pascal Siakam late in the first round. He added Fred VanVleet as an undrafted free agent. He flipped Terrence Ross for Serge Ibaka. Here you can really see the outlines of the championship roster coming together, virtually every step bearing Ujiri’s fingerprints. That summer he drafted Anunoby, again late in the first round.

The whole time the team just won and won and won, churning through games in the regular season like a thresher, and inching deeper and deeper in the playoffs, building a cache of experience that would soon become crucial. Ujiri was the guiding hand of the roster and the culture of the team. He weathered the storms and built better boats to sail rougher seas. He was the public-facing voice, full of charisma and passion, declaring that the team would win in the city of Toronto long before it did.

The next season’s ending saw the addition of Nick Nurse at the helm. Then of course that summer, Ujiri flipped DeMar DeRozan and Poeltl for Kawhi Leonard. And during the season, he traded for Marc Gasol.

Talk about a hot streak.

Of course, as all gamblers know, all hot streaks come to an end. After the championship, Toronto’s team-building has been suspect. First Toronto tried to defend its championship without Leonard, which was legitimately admirable. Toronto’s play in 2019-20 was brash and brilliant. That was about the players, though. And following that season, Toronto’s roster has been leaking fuel ever since.

Ibaka and Gasol walked. The Raptors were forced to Tampa Bay, but they managed to bring Scottie Barnes home as a result. Toronto tried to shift its focus to the trio of VanVleet-Anunoby-Siakam, which was an impressive core of talent (especially considering what the trio has accomplished elsewhere), but was never supported by surrounding talent. Ujiri’s Vision 6-9 never added enough talents at the guard or center spots, never added enough shooting. The trio withered and died on the vine, and the Raptors were forced to either let them walk (VanVleet) or trade them from relatively disadvantageous positions (Siakam) after months of trying to force a departure.

And so the team has rebuilt around Barnes, which has had mixed results to this point. Even as the team has lost and added talent in the draft, that talent hasn’t popped to the extent of players like Powell, Anunoby, or Siakam. But Ujiri has never stopped taking swings.

The Raptors added Brandon Ingram last season, which was certainly risky, but positions the Raptors in a clearly better position for next season in terms of collective talent. The Raptors even pioneered new ways to tank last season in search of Cooper Flagg.

In many ways, the seasons since Toronto’s championships represent a reason for Ujiri’s departure. He has not performed to the (admittedly unrealistically perfect) standards he set for himself from 2013 to 2019. But he has been far from a poor performer. Yes, he has made mistakes. He has also had big victories, such as drafting Barnes. (Which, if you remember, was a shock at the time.)

But my sense is that this was at least equally related to costs. With full ownership belonging to the Rogers, and Keith Pelley as the CEO of MLSE, Toronto has seen cost-cutting moves related to executives across its sports franchises. Ujiri hasn’t performed perfectly since 2019. But neither has he been a disaster or anything close to it. He remained the beating heart of the team’s culture. But the writing has been on the wall.

Doug Smith of the Toronto Star wrote this in 2021: “Edward Rogers actively fought plans to keep Masai Ujiri as head of the Toronto Raptors this summer — saying that he was not worth the amount offered — and then tried to extract an extraordinary benefit for his own company, the Star has learned.”

It’s certianly possible that Ujiri’s performance since 2019 was only an excuse to move on to another — cheaper — option to run the team.

Either way, someone else will finish the job for Ujiri. Toronto has run through several eras under Ujiri. The championship era began in 2013 and ended in 2020. From roughly 2020 to 2022, the Raptors tried to build around Siakam. We are now firmly in the middle of a third era, building around Barnes. The team may not make a ton of sense at the moment, and management certainly has plenty of choices to make this upcoming season. We’ll see what direction it goes.

That, as with so much else, will be decided in coming days and weeks. For now, Ujiri is gone. He built something with the Raptors that had before him seemed impossible. He rescued a team that was wandering in the desert and brought pride, success, and stability.

Now we’ll see what defines the team in his absence.

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