Masai Ujiri will suit up for Raptors
By Brian Boake
The Raptors have taken an unorthodox approach to backfilling their need for fresh blood in the backcourt.
The Toronto Raptors have added a new guard to their roster. President and General Manager Masai Ujiri has decided the right man to flesh out the team looks back at him in the mirror every morning.
“We need some help given Kyle Lowry’s recent problems with his elbow” said Masai in an interview. “But we want to be careful with our money. MLSE [Raptors owner] is a bit short of cash at the moment and has asked all of us to tighten our belts. If we draw Detroit in the playoffs, we’ll probably carpool. It’s only four hours drive time down the 401 Highway. Anyway, when we decided to acquire insurance for Kyle, I volunteered myself. I don’t have much to do these days, as salary-cap issues are simple and the draft is months away. Hiring me is cheaper than paying a taxi to bring someone all the way from Mississauga [home of Raptors 905, the minor league team]. ”
Masai isn’t worried about the demands going back on the floor will place on his 46-year-old body. He says “I get a lot of exercise taking my daughter for her walks, and the NBA isn’t much tougher than that. Remember I was a player for years in college and in Europe. That was only 20 years ago.”
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The GM has spoken to Raptors coach Dwane Casey about his role on the team. “I’ve told coach not to worry about my minutes, or about whether he’d like a contract extension when his current deal expires. I certainly won’t be thinking about those two things when I’m sitting at the end of the bench, still waiting to get on the floor. ”
“Obviously I don’t expect coach to change his rotation to suit me” mused Ujiri. “I’ll need at least a week before I’m ready to start.”
I tried to speak to coach Casey about how he plans to use Masai, but sadly he pleaded to the onset of a migraine headache and departed. So I turned back to Ujiri and asked if he could expand on the team’s plans to eliminate whatever cash crunch ownership is suffering through.
“We’d like to both save money on needless expenses and increase our ticket revenue. On the expense side, even executives are being asked to suffer. I’ve told them ‘No more champagne at breakfast’.”
Warming to his subject, Ujiri continued “When a fan leaves his seat to buy a beer, the seat is empty until he returns. How about allowing overflow fans, who are waiting in a cattle pen, to occupy that seat for a per-minute fee? If we ask our bartenders to pull their beer taps slowly, we should be able to stretch out that purchase to a full quarter’s worth of time. That’s 12 more minutes of ticket revenue. And the fan who’s waiting for his pint gets to watch the game on an overhead TV. It’s win-win.”
“We plan on sending out retroactive invoices to season-seat holders. The first batch will go to those fans who watched Andrea Bargnani during his time in Toronto. I’m sure they would be happy to pay a premium for having enjoyed the sight of Bargs busting his butt on defense every night. I’ve got reliable reports of him breaking a sweat on several occasions.”
“Commemorative videos will be released soon, starting with: “Hedo Turkoglu – Greatest Raptors Moments” and “Rob Babcock – His Best Deals”. Those two are likely to be short.”
I had more questions for the esteemed Raptors GM, but at this point I was speechless. “Don’t worry about it” Ujiri consoled. “It’s April – Foolish things happen.” He left, whistling “Brother, can you spare a dime?” softly.