Toronto Raptors: Making the Case for Masai Ujiri as Executive of the Year

Masai Ujiri has proved himself to be one of the top executives in the NBA for a few years now but has never won the Executive of the Year award while with the Toronto Raptors. Does he have a chance this year?

The NBA’s Executive of the Year award is not the trendiest of the league’s year-end accolades. Probably because you don’t see their daily impact. Even the most active of GM’s rarely make the news and often are thought of last when it comes to credit for team success. For the Toronto Raptors, things have been a little different in regards to super-executive Masai Ujiri.

Bobby Webster and Ujiri made numerous moves to not only improve the roster but also better the overall culture and help the financial side.

The first point of action in the culture rebuild was firing Coach of the Year, Dwayne Casey, in early May four days after a second-round sweep to LeBron and the Cavs. At the time, Casey’s termination didn’t look like a net positive for the Raptors. In fact, fans and people around the NBA shared an ex-Raptor, Patrick Patterson’s, reaction:

Skip ahead to mid-June, Masai and the Raptors decided to hire their new head coach internally. With that approach in mind, they appointed Nick Nurse to take over. Despite some hiccups along the way, the much-needed change in culture was put into motion by replacing Casey with Nurse.

Masai and Sixth Man of the Year finalist, Fred VanVleet, agreed to a two year, $18 million team-friendly contract extension. Comparing VanVleet’s salary to other guards with relatively similar stats it’s much easier for teams to handle.

Guards with non-rookie contracts who fit that criteria are: Ricky Rubio, Jeff Teague, Goran Dragic, and Darren Collison. After an impressive season by bench players standards, Steady Freddy was in a position to get paid. Getting VanVleet on such a deal is overlooked in terms of the construction of this year’s Raptors team. Not only that, it will help them out come next season.

Just weeks later, Masai made a deal that shocked the NBA universe. He obtained Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green from the San Antonio Spurs in return for DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl.

Aside from the emotional side of things, this trade was exceptional on many different levels. First off, Kawhi is a major upgrade over DeRozan. Second, neither Pascal Siakam or OG Anunoby had to be moved. On top of that, Danny Green was somehow treated as a “throw in”. Lastly, the Spurs added $5 million to make the deal even sweeter.

By the time the trade deadline came around Masai found a way to make another splash. The Raptors acquired Marc Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright and C.J Miles. If you haven’t figured it out yet, this trade has worked very well in the Raptors favor.

As the season progressed, smaller, less impactful moves were made to round out the edges. Masai added Lorenzo Brown, Jordan Loyd, and Greg Monroe before the season. Following with Patrick McCaw, Malcolm Miller, Jeremy Lin, Jodie Meeks, and Eric Moreland once the season was in full swing.

None of these guys pushed the needle either way for the Raptors. However, Masai was able to manipulate some loopholes which saved ownership a pretty penny:

The Raptors made numerous moves this season in order to put them in a situation to be the best version we’ve ever seen. They not only made the NBA Finals for the first time but managed to take home the Larry O’Brien trophy. That feat doesn’t happen without Masai.

The one caveat for him not winning the award is that votes may be split between him and the Raptors actual GM, Webster.

Nevertheless, no executive made more impact moves than Masai. No executive helped their team get over the proverbial hump more than Masai. No executive took control of their franchise the way Masai did. To put it simply, no executive deserves this more than Masai.