Masai Ujiri, Toronto Raptors Half Methods After 13 Seasons

Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors ended a 13-year collaboration that featured an NBA championship in 2019.

The Toronto Raptors’ Masai Ujiri period is formally extinct.

Toronto mum or dad firm Maple Leaf Sports activities and Leisure introduced that the Raptors parted methods with longtime president/vice chairman Masai Ujiri, ending a 13-year collaboration that produced a championship in 2019. 

Ujiri’s departure was a part of a sequence of entrance workplace transactions for Ontario, which additionally granted extensions to “key personnel,” together with common supervisor Bobby Webster.

“Throughout his 13 seasons with the Raptors, Masai has helped remodel the group on the court docket and has been an inspirational chief off it,” MLSE President and CEO Keith Pelley stated in an announcement. “He introduced an NBA Championship to Toronto and urged us to imagine on this metropolis, and ourselves. We’re grateful for all he has accomplished and want him and his household the perfect.”

Ujiri, 54, started his entrance workplace profession as a scout in Orlando and Denver earlier than initially working behind the scenes for the Raptors in 2008. He later returned to the Rockies to grow to be their common supervisor in 2010, making him the NBA’s first common supervisor of African descent. For his efforts throughout the 2012-13 season—which noticed the Nuggets win a then-franchise report 57 video games and purchase Andre Iguodala and Andre Miller—Ujiri was bestowed the Government of the 12 months award.

Ujiri went again north in 2013, which tipped off a franchise-record streak of seven consecutive postseason showings. He held the identical common supervisor place for 3 years earlier than passing it on to Jeff Weltman and taking up the position of president of basketball operations.

Below his watch, the Raptors acquired a few of the most iconic names in franchise historical past, together with OG Anunoby, Kawhi Leonard, Pascal Siakam, and Fred VanFleet. Along with mainstay Kyle Lowry, the Raptors turned the primary workforce past United States borders to raise the Larry O’Brien Trophy, taking down the Golden State Warriors in six video games within the 2019 NBA Finals. 

Toronto has since entered a interval of rebuilding, having bid farewell to almost each identify from their championship group and rebuilding from the bottom up. The Raptors have missed the playoffs in every of the final three seasons and look like set on constructing round a core consisting of homegrown All-Star Scottie Barnes, the prolonged Immanuel Quickley, and the acquired Brandon Ingram, who came visiting from New Orleans in a deadline deal regardless of coping with a season-ending ankle harm. 

Ujiri’s closing strikes have been to oversee the Raptors’ actions within the 2025 NBA Draft, which noticed them add South Carolina product Collin Murray-Boyles with the ninth general decide earlier than choosing up newly-crowned Florida nationwide champion Alijah Martin 30 picks later.

Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags