Raptors executive Masai Ujiri has emerged as a target for the Hawks as they search for a new president of basketball operations, Marc Stein reports in his latest Substack article (subscription required).
Sources tell Stein that it’s unclear if Atlanta has a legitimate chance to lure Ujiri, who has been with Toronto for the past 12 years. Ujiri’s contract status hasn’t been made public, but Stein hears that he’s believed to be entering the final season of his current deal.
After starting his career as a scout, Ujiri worked his way up to assistant general manager with the Raptors in 2008 before leaving to become the GM in Denver in 2010. He was named Executive of the Year with the Nuggets in 2013, then returned to Toronto as executive vice president.
Ujiri bolstered his reputation as one of the NBA’s top executives when he built the Raptors team that captured the franchise’s first-ever NBA title in 2019. The final piece of the puzzle was a bold move to trade for San Antonio’s Kawhi Leonard, who was entering the final year of his contract and only spent one season with the team.
Ujiri, who has since been promoted to president and vice chairman, is still recognized as a master team builder, even though Toronto has fallen on hard times in recent years, missing the playoffs in four of the past five seasons. Stein notes that after finishing 30-52 this year, Ujiri promised at an April press conference to bring another championship to Toronto.
The Hawks shook up their front office after being eliminated in the play-in tournament, firing general manager Landry Fields on April 21. Assistant GM Onsi Saleh was promoted to interim GM and is currently handling the day-to-day operations, but the new hire is expected to run the organization.
A Stein Line report last week indicated that owner Tony Ressler was exploring the idea of having a player agent take over the job, with Trae Young‘s agent, Austin Brown of CAA, among the top candidates. League sources confirm to Stein that Octagon’s Alex Saratsis, who represents Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo, has also moved into the picture, as previously reported by Grant Afseth.
Past performance does indicate future success. This guy traded for RJ Barret. He is bringing a title to Toronto the title to a hoopdee lol
Past performance like say a title in 2019….
Masai Ujiri would be best case scenario for us
Ujiri is to NBA front offices as Jeff Fisher is to NFL coaches
Except Fisher never won a title.
Master team builder lol.
Hopefully Nico is looking for a new job soon..He’d be great in Atlanta…he’ll he’d be great anywhere other than Dallas.
Lateral job, FA don’t consider ATL or Tor.
And a subpar ownership group. No way he considers this at all unless the power structure changes.
Atlanta is a place a lot of NBA players love to visit, so I imagine that it could become a FA destination. The franchise is stuck in neutral, but I don’t think that has anything to do with FA not wanting to go there. Given that the Nets and Heat are doing whatever they are doing, and that the Bulls are owned by cheapskates and led by idiots, it sure would be nice to see an eastern conference team like Atlanta take a big swing.
Thy visit for the Lemon Pepper and the hoes, they don’t want to live there.
Winning in the nba is hard if you dont draft a generational talent, Ujiri did a great job with Toronto and though they havent been a championship contender recently I dont see that as a failure as like I said it is very hard to build a championship team.
Uriji has been hyped since his rookie GM season in DEN, largely because he was credited with getting a lot of assets from the NYK in the Melo trade (in reality, the NYK would have given all those assets to any GM who asked). Then, fast forward 7 years later, he pulls of the Kawhi deal and is the league’s darling GM again.
His record in between those two was solid, good drafts for the most part without high FRPs, and decent trades. He clearly knows talent (although, he has a type and is quite stubborn about it). Bigger picture, he inherited mid to low playoff teams and produced mid to low playoff teams. His record after the Year of Kawhi hasn’t been impressive. It’s notable because this was the first time he faced the challenge of team building from scratch. The sentiment from the few TOR fans I know is mixed at best.
Toronto sports fans are notoriously fickle. I wouldn’t put much stock in what they have to say unless they actually follow the entire league. The ones that don’t have no clue what they are talking about.
I say this as a Raptors fan who thinks the negativity some have shown towards the front office is completely overblown and not grounded in reality at all.
Not sure if you mean there isn’t any significant negativity, or there is, but its unfounded. The people I spoke with were all quite able to have a thoughtful opinion on any FO’s performance (which, of course, doesn’t mean they’re right). Certainly I didn’t sense any negativity from them toward him, although I didn’t ask.
Either way, its been 6 full seasons since Kawhi walked. How would YOU grade Ujiri’s performance since-? – Both in trying to adjust the roster for another potential run, and in his more recent rebuilding efforts (his trades and his draft picks).
Why would he want to leave Toronto. Seems he has it good there. Hawks just can’t seem to turn the corner. Every so many yrs there is a rebuild going on. They went from a young up coming team in East Finals. To the #1 pick in the draft. Why go there.
It seems most of these guys are mostly interchangeable. As long as they aren’t the bottom tier.
Lucking into top tier superstars seems to be the defining difference, making them go from competent to great.
An examplme. Kerr and GS, seems to portray themselves as master builders. They are the straw, the front office is the culture. No.
It’s 99% drafting multiple superstars
Get Masai Ujiri
Trade Jalen Johnson, Zachary Rosacher, the 13th overall pick and the 22nd overall for Giannis.
Release Capela, LeVert and Nance jr.
Bring in Bruce Brown, BLopez and Reggie Jackson
Trae Dyson Brown Giannis Lopez
Jackson Mann … Niang Okungwu
Bufkin Gueye
Bucks in return get two forwards for the future to build around plus 2 picks in this year’s draft.
May aswell bring back KPJ while Dame is out and try trade Kuzma.
I know everyone has their own taste and that taxes are high and crossing the border can be a pain…but Toronto is absolutely one of the most beautiful and most fun cities in North America. You’d have trouble convincing me to leave if I had a 7-figure job there!
All they needed was a younger C starter and a young PG prospect but whatever. I thought Fields was doing okay… No? Atlanta had got the 1st choice. Why was he fired? Shoot I remember when everyone was in love with him when he was playing