Team president Masai Ujiri says Toronto Raptors still working to get better

Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri speaks to the media in Toronto on Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO — Masai Ujiri believes there are three ways to build a successful NBA team: the draft, via trade or in free agency.

The Raptors president said at his season-ending news conference on Wednesday that his front office has done well to turn the team’s fortunes around and Toronto is poised return to the post-season.

Ujiri acknowledged it was a fine line to walk trying improve the Raptors this season without damaging their position in this summer’s NBA Draft.

“We have to play the game and try to play the game the best we can,” said Ujiri in the media centre of Toronto’s OVO Athletic Centre. “And also take care of our business and trying to build our team depending on the markets that you are or the way you can acquire players.

“We tried to attack to the odds in the lottery and see what we can do.”

Toronto (30-52) finished seven games out of the Eastern Conference’s final play-in spot. That gives the Raptors the seventh-worst record in the NBA, with a 31.9 per cent chance of getting a top-four pick and a 7.5 per cent shot at the first-overall selection at the NBA Draft Lottery on May 12.

Duke Blue Devils guard Cooper Flagg is the consensus top pick in the draft to be held on June 25, but Ujiri said it’s a particularly promising group of players to choose from.

“Wherever we fall, we’re going to go for the best talent available,” said Ujiri. “I know it’s the answer everybody gives or maybe we give, but it’s a unique draft, and we feel that we will have a talented player available, and we’ll try to get one that fits our ball club.”

The Raptors entered the 2024 draft with just one pick but, through trades and a free agent signing, wound up with five rookies: Ja’Kobe Walter (19th overall), Jonathan Mogbo (31st), Jamal Shead (45th), Ulrich Chomche (57th) and Jamison Battle (undrafted free agent). Chomche missed most of the season when he tore his ulnar collateral ligament in February, but the other four all impressed.

Toronto also added former all-star Brandon Ingram through a deal with the New Orleans Pelicans before the NBA trade deadline, presumably solidifying next year’s starting rotation with the wing joining Immanuel Quickley, Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett of Mississauga, Ont., and Jakob Poeltl.

“This is how you build a team, through the draft, through free agency, or through trading for a player,” said Ujiri. “We’ve done them all here, but you have to read the market. You have to figure out what the opportunity is.

“Sometimes I can guarantee you there are many unique opportunities that are going to come up in July (when free agency opens) and we have to look at all of them.”

During the 2023 off-season Ujiri repeatedly said that the team needed a cultural reset, to become less selfish on the court and more close off of it. He gave Toronto’s current culture an A+ on Wednesday.

“We’re working on our offence, and I think our offence will get better as we grow, but we have that focus, of playing together and playing the right way, and attacking the game,” said Ujiri. “It’s really built our culture. You see the culture of the players even off the court.

“These guys, they do it for themselves, and I’m proud of them for that, and I’m proud of (head coach Darko Rajakovic) for setting that and (general manager Bobby Webster) for setting that platform for them in some ways.”

Ujiri also praised Rajakovic for the impact he’s had on the young team. He added that he picked up the option on Rajakvoic’s contract last off-season as a vote of confidence despite a 25-57 record after his first year as a head coach in the NBA.

“Not everybody wants to feel like you’re looking over your shoulder in some kind of way, and I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Ujiri. “But more than that, he was deserving. For development and coaching these guys, his communication, his leadership, how he brings all the departments together. I think he’s done a phenomenal job.

“We put him in a tough situation, and we understand that, and I understand that. It’s good to make somebody feel comfortable with his job and feel comfortable where he is.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2025.

John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press