Raptors Discussion: v27: Ujiri signs 5 year, $3m per year deal to become Raptors GM

[hockeywiz542]

http://www.nba.com/2013/news/featur...a-nuggets-front-office-woes/index.html#nobody

Ujiri remade the rest of the Nuggets' roster as well, flipping Nene for JaVale McGee and Felton for Andre Miller. And he acquired Olympian Andre Iguodala from the 76ers last summer as part of the four-team deal that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers, Nikola Vucevic and Arron Afflalo to Orlando and Andrew Bynum to Philadelphia.

Yet the Nuggets showed no interest in getting Ujiri closer to what his peers in the league were making. So when Toronto made a hard run at him and offered to make him what is believed to be one of the NBA's top five-paid GMs, Ujiri had no choice -- though it took him more than a week to decide.

"At the end of the day, I think I made the right decision," Ujiri said Sunday. "It was a tough decision. There's not a drop of indecisive blood in me. I tried to take my time and be sure it was the right thing, but it wasn't like I was going back and forth."

The Nuggets matched Toronto's five years for Ujiri, but fell far short of the $3 million. After meeting with the Raptors' new CEO, Tim Leiweke, May 24, Ujiri had to wait until the Kroenkes, who also own the NHL's Colorado Avalanche, finalized a new contract with Hall of Famer Patrick Roy to become the team's new head coach. After that, Ujiri wanted to meet face to face with Josh Kroenke.

"I thought, if I'm staying here, I knew what I would be staying for," Ujiri said. "Because of my friendship with Josh, I didn't want to say 'Give me more because I had this offer.' "

Josh Kroenke declined comment Sunday.

Ujiri has moved quickly to clean out the Raptors' front office, informing veteran executive Ed Stefanski on Saturday that he wouldn't be brought back next season. Though Ujiri would like to bring his assistant from Denver, Pete D'Alessandro, to Toronto, the Nuggets are not expected to let D'Alessandro go. Ujiri will meet with Raptors Coach Dwane Casey this week, to see what plans Casey has to improve the Raptors' offensively.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Michael Grange: Masai Ujiri must pick his path

http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/grange-on-raptors-ujiri-must-pick-his-path/

The Pacers, meanwhile, became the first team in since the 1983 San Antonio Spurs to make it to the NBA’s final four without the benefit of a player taken in the top eight in the draft of any year. Their two best players in the series, Paul George and Roy Hibbert, were taken 10th and 17th respectively. Their other starters, Lance Stephenson, George Hill and David West were taken 10th, 26th and 18th.

If you’re from Toronto, and know what the city has to offer, it’s tough accept being lumped in with the Milwaukee and Cleveland and Memphis and Indianapolis or Portland, Salt Lake City, Denver or Detroit.

But as the Raptors look to reinvent themselves yet another time, having failed heading into their 18th season to settle on a vision and a philosophy that works, what Ujiri and perhaps more importantly Leiweke sees when they watch Game 7 Monday night is a burning issue for the short- and long-term vision of the franchise.

Do they see Toronto as a glamour market waiting to be discovered?

Or do they accept their fate as one of the NBA’s ‘other’ markets which will have to go about the dodgy business of building a winning team the long-way around?

Or, more appropriately, will they recognize what they truly are: one of the NBA’s secondary markets, to be sure, but one with advantages that far outstrip niggly issues like higher taxes, cold weather or customs lineups?

For Raptors fans the most encouraging development in this year’s playoffs is evidence that teams like Memphis or Golden State or Denver or Indiana – all promising teams without a classic franchise player taken in the top-five of the draft – can move themselves into the conversation as contenders without having tanked in search of landing the next Kevin Durant in the draft.

Even more encouraging would by the recognition that the Raptors have one advantage that a lot of so-called secondary markets don’t – and that’s the ability and apparent willingness, according to Leiweke be a tax team.

What that means is that should Ujiri be able to assemble a team that can find a way to compete it has a chance to be sustainable and won’t necessarily require being sold off for parts to avoid luxury tax penalties. That with the bones of a winning team in place money can be spent to keep players and attract new ones.

It’s an option teams like Memphis or Indiana and other markets not among the league’s glamour set don’t necessarily have, but one that should be very real here. There is hope, in other words.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Ujiri Meets Media Tuesday

New Raptors General Manager Masai Ujiri will meet the media along with MLSE President and CEO Tim Leiweke on Tuesday at 11 AM ET. Watch the news conference LIVE here at Raptors.com or on NBA TV Canada.

Watch Live Stream Here:

http://www.nba.com/raptors/raptorslive

 

[CanadianLov3]

Watch Live Stream Here:

http://www.nba.com/raptors/raptorslive

Ugh, so Casey will stay for another season. Hopefully Ujiri gives him a talk regards to playing the rookies more this time.

 

[mikebel111*]

Ugh, so Casey will stay for another season. Hopefully Ujiri gives him a talk regards to playing the rookies more this time.

I am willing to give him one more chance, but as you said, playing guys like chuckerson won't help.

guys like ross and val need more floor time. as they figure to be part of the core

 

[Emerica]

Ugh, so Casey will stay for another season. Hopefully Ujiri gives him a talk regards to playing the rookies more this time.

I'm guessing by rookies you mean Val, Acy and Ross? They won't be rookies next season and we have no picks in the draft.

Pretty sure Val will see his minutes increase significantly. Ross and Acy should be getting more aswell. We'll see.

 

[CanadianLov3]

I am willing to give him one more chance, but as you said, playing guys like chuckerson won't help.

guys like ross and val need more floor time. as they figure to be part of the core

I'm not giving him any chance, he's terrible.. I watched every single Raptors game last season, his rotations were mind blowing... I dunno what Ujiri has in plan keeping him, we will just have to wait and see. This team is a complete mess, Ujiri has his hands full, for sure.

So far he has done well, cant wait to see if his plans to get Bargs gone by July 1st pulls through.

 

[The Nemesis]

I'm not giving him any chance, he's terrible.. I watched every single Raptors game last season, his rotations were mind blowing... I dunno what Ujiri has in plan keeping him, we will just have to wait and see. This team is a complete mess, Ujiri has his hands full, for sure.

So far he has done well, cant wait to see if his plans to get Bargs gone by July 1st pulls through.

Did you watch the year before? Because he took a pretty scrubtastic Raptors game an won more games than they had any business winning. Which, granted, was only 23 games in the short 66 game schedule, but that was an awful, awful Raptors roster. Rasual Butler starting, Anthony Carter and Ben Uzoh playing meaningful minutes as the backup PG, Gary Forbes, the James Johnson gong show, a career high in MPG for Aaron Gray. That was terrible team and they still managed to finish 22nd in the league instead down in teh basement with Washington and New Orleans (with Charlotte in the sub-basement)

and people (including Raptors fans) were lauding him for it.

I'm not saying he's a great coach, or that he's off the hook for last season, but it feels very much like all of the Casey hate is very much a "what have you done for me lately" reaction to just this last season. Maybe he's not the coach of 11-12. Maybe he's not the coach of 12-13. We don't know for sure yet. He's earned one more crack at the job to see which Casey is the real one.

He does appear to need something along the lines of an "offensive coordinator" to help run the rotations and offensive sets though. Because clearly his forte is the defensive side of the ball.

 

[CanadianLov3]

Did you watch the year before? Because he took a pretty scrubtastic Raptors game an won more games than they had any business winning. Which, granted, was only 23 games in the short 66 game schedule, but that was an awful, awful Raptors roster. Rasual Butler starting, Anthony Carter and Ben Uzoh playing meaningful minutes as the backup PG, Gary Forbes, the James Johnson gong show, a career high in MPG for Aaron Gray. That was terrible team and they still managed to finish 22nd in the league instead down in teh basement with Washington and New Orleans (with Charlotte in the sub-basement)

and people (including Raptors fans) were lauding him for it.

I'm not saying he's a great coach, or that he's off the hook for last season, but it feels very much like all of the Casey hate is very much a "what have you done for me lately" reaction to just this last season. Maybe he's not the coach of 11-12. Maybe he's not the coach of 12-13. We don't know for sure yet. He's earned one more crack at the job to see which Casey is the real one.

He does appear to need something along the lines of an "offensive coordinator" to help run the rotations and offensive sets though. Because clearly his forte is the defensive side of the ball.

"His forte is the defensive side of the ball"

We were one of the worst defensive team couldn't hold onto any leads in the 4th quartars lol , doesn't know when to call timeouts, his love for scrubs was disturbing... don't like him neither does A LOT of Toronto people.

One game that haunts me is the Miami game where we led by like 15+pts at one point and then completely lost the lead in the 4th and Casey decided to take a timeout after we trailed by like 10+ points.


Ujiri is probably trying to figure out the direction of this team before he throws money around for a coaching change... only reason I believe he'll stick around next season.

 

[The Nemesis]

"His forte is the defensive side of the ball"

We were one of the worst defensive team couldn't hold onto any leads in the 4th quartars lol , doesn't know when to call timeouts, his love for scrubs was disturbing... don't like him neither does A LOT of Toronto people.

One game that haunts me is the Miami game where we led by like 15+pts at one point and then completely lost the lead in the 4th and Casey decided to take a timeout after we trailed by like 10+ points.


Ujiri is probably trying to figure out the direction of this team before he throws money around for a coaching change... only reason I believe he'll stick around next season.

You completely ignored the actual primary point of my post.

And again, the 11-12 Raptors were a top 10 defensive team in terms of points allowed and opposition shooting % (both general FG and 3pt). And this was with a crap roster that consisted of (at various points):

DeRozan, Calderon, James Johnson, Amir, Ed Davis, Kleiza, Bargnani, Leandro Barbosa, Aaron Gray, Gary Forbes, Jerryd Bayless, Alan Anderson, Rasual Butler, Jamaal Magloire, Ben Uzoh, Anthony Carter, Solomon Alabi, and Justin Dentmon.

That's an awful roster. Far worse than what they ended last season with. And only a couple of those guys are anywhere close to defensively talented.

So he's had one great season in terms of defensive effectiveness with a craptastic roster that is worlds worse than last year's. And he's had one bad season (which isn't as bad as it's made out to be when you consider that for the most part the team sat in the lower part of the middle third of the league, not rock bottom). He deserves one more chance to show who the real Dwane Casey is in terms of his team's defensiveness effectiveness.

He does need someone to steer things offensively because like I said that's clearly not his strength as a coach. But he's shown the ability to coach defensively.

 

[Joey24]

You completely ignored the actual primary point of my post.

And again, the 11-12 Raptors were a top 10 defensive team in terms of points allowed and opposition shooting % (both general FG and 3pt). And this was with a crap roster that consisted of (at various points):

DeRozan, Calderon, James Johnson, Amir, Ed Davis, Kleiza, Bargnani, Leandro Barbosa, Aaron Gray, Gary Forbes, Jerryd Bayless, Alan Anderson, Rasual Butler, Jamaal Magloire, Ben Uzoh, Anthony Carter, Solomon Alabi, and Justin Dentmon.

That's an awful roster. Far worse than what they ended last season with. And only a couple of those guys are anywhere close to defensively talented.

So he's had one great season in terms of defensive effectiveness with a craptastic roster that is worlds worse than last year's. And he's had one bad season (which isn't as bad as it's made out to be when you consider that for the most part the team sat in the lower part of the middle third of the league, not rock bottom). He deserves one more chance to show who the real Dwane Casey is in terms of his team's defensiveness effectiveness.

He does need someone to steer things offensively because like I said that's clearly not his strength as a coach.

For me its his inability to coach a game on the leavel of when to know to call time outs, who he gives minutes to and at what time in the game who to run the offense through, there just doesn't seem to be any system on the offensive side of the ball, it's like watching a rec league team on offense at times.

I would love to see some sort of structure on the offense, I think the defensive system is there just the execution is off maybe they can sort things out for next season. I have no problems with him coming back to coach the team next season but he really better up his ability to coach a team because from what he has shown thus far he really does need quite a bit of work himself as a coach.

 

[The Nemesis]

For me its his inability to coach a game on the leavel of when to know to call time outs, who he gives minutes to and at what time in the game who to run the offense through, there just doesn't seem to be any system on the offensive side of the ball, it's like watching a rec league team on offense at times.

I would love to see some sort of structure on the offense, I think the defensive system is there just the execution is off maybe they can sort things out for next season. I have no problems with him coming back to coach the team next season but he really better up his ability to coach a team because from what he has shown thus far he really does need quite a bit of work himself as a coach.

Which is why I think he really needs an offensively geared primary assistant. We tend to always thing that head coaches should be jacks-of-all-trades, but most of them came up as assistants who specialized, and they're naturally going to carry that through to their HC status. Get Casey a right hand who can design an offence, create lineups and then have them be pretty much ready to run through Casey. Obviously you can't just turn Casey into an offensive puppet for the assistant, but if you get someone who can show they know what they're doing, that's how Casey can learn and through implementing them he'll not only look better offensively but maybe he'll actually personally be better administering the offence. That's not going to fix the time-out issue, but an offensive coach can probably help steer the lineup/rotation issue in the right direction.

 

[Swervin81]

Dwane Casey is a good defensive mind, but that's literally it. He loves vets big time, has horrific rotations, has horrible sense of when to call timeouts, and has horrible set plays out of timeouts.

If reports are true that teams are asking Denver about George Karl, Raps should jump at that immediately. He may be a mediocre playoff coach, but you have to first make the playoffs, and he is one of the better coaches to get you there.

 

[Eytinge]

Its clear to me ujiri will just let Casey coach the last year of his contract and then look to bring in his own guy.

 

[Dr.Funk]

Its clear to me ujiri will just let Casey coach the last year of his contract and then look to bring in his own guy.

Doesn't George Karl's contract expire after next season as well?

 

[trellaine201]

Its clear to me ujiri will just let Casey coach the last year of his contract and then look to bring in his own guy.

That's what I think as well. Last year of contract. Not looking to do very well in terms of wins. Then find the right person.

 

[wulfio*]

maybe he's going to gut the team and tank for wiggins and then hire a new coach next off season.

 

[trellaine201]

Why do people keep bringing up this guy. No guarantees we would even pick first. Let alone finish last etc.

 

[topched]

That's what I think as well. Last year of contract. Not looking to do very well in terms of wins. Then find the right person.

Its also very difficult to go through a rebuilding/losing phase with a coach and then have him stay with the team when you start "trying to win".

Easy for Casey to stick around while Ujiri guts the team and moulds it to his liking. Its a sick way to look at it... but Casey becomes the fall guy while roster changes.

 

[RayzorIsDull]

Why do people keep bringing up this guy. No guarantees we would even pick first. Let alone finish last etc.

How are they going to tank when they are up against the cap with guys like Gay, Derozan, Lowry? Are these guys just going to sit out the whole year so they can get Wiggins? Destinations for Wiggins include teams that don't have much to begin with eg. Charlotte, Phoenix, Sacramento. I was tempted to put Orlando but they have a lot of cap room so they can get some work done.

Ujuri has his work cut out for him with no first rounder this year, Bargnani who nobody wants, very little cap room.

 

[TheDream]

Hey everyone, MU and TL's press conference happening live now!

http://www.nba.com/raptors/raptorslive

 

[Drmckool]

Why do people keep bringing up this guy. No guarantees we would even pick first. Let alone finish last etc.

Perhaps it's because many believe that the NBA draft is rigged and Toronto is going to get him because he's Canadian.

 

[Stats01]

Interesting tweet by Bruce Arthur. He's guessing by 2016 the team will be re-named the Toronto Huskies. Very interesting considering Leiweke and his group are looking into re-branding the team.

 

[wulfio*]

that would be good, raptors is kind of a childish name, like the mighty ducks.

 

[hockeywiz542]

http://video.tsn.ca/?dl=main/latest/1/0/939997/clip/0

Raptors Press Conference

The Raptors introduced Masai Ujiri as their new general manager and he said he feels like he is home.