Before the NBA all-star break, 海角社区官网Raptors president Masai Ujiri sat down for an exclusive, on-the-record interview with the Star in front of a group of season ticket holders at OVO Athletic Centre.
Here is the column that came out of that event:聽
- Bruce Arthur
And here are some highlights of what else Ujiri had to say in the wide-ranging conversation:
On how championship teams are built
”(In Philadelphia) Joel Embiid, and who was the second guy? And they tried and tried and tried. I’m not criticizing them. I’m just saying this is what happened. OKC, Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander and Chad (Holmgren) and (Jalen) Williams, and now they have the core. And Boston, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Think of how many players, for how many years, have rotated around these guys. Everybody has gone there, signed there, left there, come back, gone there. Al Horford, Kyrie Irving, Terry Rozier, they have tried all kinds of stuff. And then it works with those two players eventually.”
On how long the rebuilding timeline has to be
“So yeah, if we get that second player, and one of your guys grows into being that guy, that’s how long it’s going to last. I’m not going to sit here and lie to people or tell them it’s going to last five years, because I want every shot or every chance at it. I’m going to tell you exactly what the reality is. As soon as we get those two phenomenal, incredible players, and we already have one in Scottie Barnes, or two and a half of them, or three of them, whatever it takes.”
With the Miami Heat in town Friday, is losing really winning?聽Are the hearts of the Raptors beating in rhythm with the front office?聽聽
With the Miami Heat in town Friday, is losing really winning?聽Are the hearts of the Raptors beating in rhythm with the front office?聽聽
On the core of this team
“Scottie is the main core of this team. I think you build around him because of the winning mentality, because of the winning instincts he has. Yeah, he’s not completely a shot maker now, that will develop, but I think he’s a championship-contending competitor now. He understands the game well enough where this is the rebound to get, this is the steal to get, sometimes the right pass to make, when he’s not over-ambitious, or maybe playing with younger players, or people with not the calibre of where his mind is going at the time. And he does make mistakes now.
I think Jakob is a championship centre, if he’s playing with incredible players. If Jakob went to any of his contending teams, you’ve raised the level. He fits with any team. And that’s why we brought him, because he fits also in rebuilding, he’s a great passer, he’s a great team guy, unselfish, and has the right attitude toward winning.”
On the changing league
“I’ll say this for the older players, the LeBron Jameses, the Kevin Durants, the Jimmy Butlers, the Steph Currys, all three of you go on a team, that’s done, that’s not happening anymore, because nobody is scared of that anymore. Yeah, nobody. And by the way, if you are doing that, that means these guys are making $50-million, $50 million. If you are paying a 36-year-old that, with the LeBron Jameses, the Steph Currys, those guys, they’ve earned it. They are good enough. But what is going to happen now is some of these older guys have to take less money and go and play on younger teams. That has to be the next trend, because teams are not going to take that risk of paying 37, 38-year-olds anymore.”
On whether losing will be corrosive to this group
鈥淚 think losing will never be corrosive in this. It’s not going to be part of this organization. You play sports to win, and there are sometimes organizations just go through cycles where you’re not going to win every day in sports. You’re not going to win every time.鈥
On confidence in himself and his team
“I’m not like, an overconfident person in where I would say, I don’t address some of the things that we’ve done wrong, or you don’t learn from things. I’m not like that at all. I don’t have arrogance in that way, but I know the people that work with me, Bobby (Webster), Dan (Tolzman), Teresa (Resch), before she left (for the WNBA鈥檚 海角社区官网Tempo), these are incredible smart people. Everybody that I hired is smarter than me. And I know that smart people make you rise. And adversity in sports, tough times in sports is going to come. This is our job. That’s why we get paid to do this.”
On worrying about his job
“There’s never a point where I worry about this job. If you do that, then I don’t think you do it that well. I say that because if I don’t have this job, I swear to you guys, I’ll have a better job, and that better job might not even be a job, is what I’m saying to you. I’m lucky. I’m a happy person, so even if I don’t have this, I’m happy. Yeah, I’m happy with Giants of Africa. I’m happy with everything I do, I’m really happy. So you can never go into this worried about, are you going to have the job? I have to leave this place just like I left Denver. I’m going to leave this place in the best position that it has ever been in. I’m not going to leave this place and they’re going to look at it and say, oh, man, look at what Masai and these guys did. Or I鈥檒l leave this place in a position where you have unbelievable people, to take it over.”
On winning another title
“In the NBA, since we won it, a different team has won it every year. So why do I even have any doubt that I cannot win it next year, or the year after, or the year after that?”
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