Nearly a month removed from the Toronto Raptors firing Masai Ujiri as the team’s president, there is a line that is still rattling around my brain from that Friday afternoon.
“Let’s give Masai tremendous accolades for creating a brand and a culture,” Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley said then. “But the testament to that brand and the testament to a culture is how it lives once that individual is gone. And I believe that the culture and the brand that he’s created will flourish because that’s the way that he would have wanted it to flourish. But when you create a brand, when you create a culture, if it is mitigated when that individual is no longer involved, then the culture and the brand has not been created in the right way.”
I don’t think Pelley got it wrong, per se, but that mindset is a dangerous one. It is something companies, big and small, get wrong all the time. Culture isn’t an amorphous set of values. It is a set of values that is implemented and sustained by a group of people. And while those values can outlast a person’s time with a company, there is no guarantee that will happen because the people doing the work determine if the culture persists.
We’ll see if that happens with the Raptors. As of now, many of Ujiri’s top lieutenants are still in place, and it’s possible that one of them, Bobby Webster, will be elevated to his boss’s old job. Still, it’s safe to assume a few of Ujiri’s hires will leave the organization over the next few weeks and months — especially if Webster doesn’t get the big job.
With that in mind, I thought that with it being the dead of summer, it would be a useful time to revisit the culture Ujiri helped define in Toronto. Forget about the slogans and news conference catchphrases. Let’s face it, every sports team that talks about culture is basically talking about the importance of hard work and selflessness above all. Let’s get specific: What did Ujiri do and believe in that shaped how the Raptors operated? These are the things that live on, good and bad, within the Raptors.
Nothing is more important than internal player development
In his very first news conference upon taking the Raptors presidency, Ujiri said he always wanted to have the team’s back of the bench filled with young players. The Raptors wanted to use those roster spots to try to create future rotation players. Their hit rate with that strategy was wildly good at the beginning of Ujiri’s run and slumped as it progressed, but it remained more true than not throughout.
When the Raptors became title contenders, they fortified things with veterans a little more — let’s not forget that Jeremy Lin and Jodie Meeks got rings from the Raptors. They have employed Garrett Temple for three seasons with little expectation that he plays, realizing the importance of a veteran voice in uniform for a younger team. But the Raptors have consistently invested in player development, starting with buying a G League team and continuing with the building of the OVO Athletic Centre.
Ten of the Raptors’ 17 players on guaranteed contracts (2-way or otherwise) are on rookie deals, while 12 are 25 or younger.
Masai Ujiri hugs former Raptors star Kyle Lowry after winning an NBA championship in 2019. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
Patience is the ultimate virtue
Thanks to the three biggest decisions Ujiri made in the 13 months leading up to the title — the firing of Dwane Casey, the trade for Kawhi Leonard and the deadline trade for Marc Gasol — Ujiri gained a reputation for bold, abrupt decision-making. In reality, he was far more measured than that.
Ujiri retained Casey for five full seasons, even when there were two previous moments (the 2015 and 2017 offseasons) when there was a clear case for change. The same was true of keeping Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan together as the co-leaders of the team, even if that was dictated as much by circumstance (Hi, James Dolan!) and trade value as Ujiri’s own beliefs.
I would argue he was overly patient with the Fred VanVleet/Pascal Siakam/OG Anunoby core, even when it was clear things weren’t clicking in a way that would make keeping the group intact financially prudent. His belief in some of his players sometimes ultimately led to a reduced return for those players. Hell, he kept Bruno Caboclo around for 3 1/2 years despite playing just 113 minutes for the Raptors during that time.
Every time, Ujiri preferred to fail because he gave things too much of a chance instead of not enough of one.
Reward those around you
This is related to the above, and I’ve already written about it this offseason. While in theory, this practice should lead to increased two-way loyalty, that doesn’t always play out in the complicated NBA ecosystem, one full of tricky interpersonal dynamics that are often tied to salaries.
This is one value the Raptors have to rethink, if not abandon completely.
The world is bigger than you
Many figures in professional sports do great philanthropic work. It’s fair to wonder sometimes if the work is being done for the work’s sake, but positive actions, at the end of the day, are positive actions. Doing good things for the right reasons is great, but doing good things for whatever reason is still good.
That Ujiri highlighted causes that were important to him so often, whether personally or with the Raptors’ brand, became inextricably linked to the team. Giants of Africa, the Black Lives Matter movement in the NBA bubble, the prominence of women within the Raptors’ hierarchy, the hiring of an executive whose job was to explicitly shape organizational culture and inclusion — all of those things could have been done in a subtler way. However, Ujiri wanted to bring them to the forefront, because, as he spoke about frequently, they would have more impact than winning some basketball games.
The Toronto Blue Jays, who are exclusively owned by Rogers, unlike the Raptors, Maple Leafs, Toronto FC and others, do some great charitable work. That aspect of the Raptors surely won’t go anywhere. But in a more corporate structure, likely with a more buttoned-down lead executive, the messages won’t be as prominent.
Stand up for yourself
After bringing a title to Toronto, this is the biggest reason Ujiri will live on in the city, and perhaps the value that is most at jeopardy with him leaving. It’s not as if the Raptors weren’t trying to win before Ujiri became the team’s president. However, the Raptors’ vibe was always that they were hoping to be accepted rather than trying to stand out.
Ujiri did that — and yes, part of how he did that was by building a consistent winner. However, he spoke from the start about how the team would win in Toronto (that became a catchphrase). He antagonized playoff opponents, sometimes hitting first instead of waiting for provocation. He memorably told the city to believe in itself as it related to being a desirable NBA market, during Leonard’s introductory news conference no less. He also publicly defended himself and the Raptors in legal settings, straddling the line of what could be said without becoming outright inflammatory.
In this sense, Ujiri might have been one of a kind. It will be difficult for that part of Raptors culture to carry on without him.
(Top photo: Julian Avram / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
