Grange had an appearance on the Raptors show about his and Friedman’s MLSE article yesterday, here’s the paraphrased notes:
>Big change in the CEO chair compared to previous years
>Presidents in the org (Masai) were given a ton of freedom/power to pursue the agendas they wanted to do
>Pelley will very much be in charge, going from the board’s hands to Pelley’s hands
>He’s going to be the one reporting to the board about the progress plans for the Raptors for example
>By the nature of that the team presidents are a bit less powerful
>Grange thinks it’ll be the first of what he thinks will be significant changes in MLSE
>A big part of it will be managing the Bell/Rogers relationship
>Bigger change than even Larry taking a stepback
>There’s a world where it doesn’t stay 50/50 (Bell/Rogers) and one of the existing owners becomes the controlling owners
>He speculates that Rogers would be the company that would be the controlling owner
>Speculates that maybe Bell wants to cash out
>Larry will probably be bought out, and then we’ve seen where he’s already started his own sports venture company (WNBA expansion)
>Masai’s deal is for 2 more seasons
>Grange won’t draw a straight line between Larry/Masai but it’s not unreasonable to think that they’re connected
>Questions will be asked on team performance, Grange thinks it’s reasonable based on pre-existing relationships that you could be thinking of a change with Masai and the Raptors
>Blake speculates that timeline regarding how quickly the rebuild will be or will in turn into a re-tool trying to be competitive again is maybe something at the CEO level that’s important for there to be alignment between that person and Masai
>Blake speculates that there’s maybe there’s the ability to trade their picks for win-now piece
>Grange speculates that these changes are not going to affect decisions this offseason
>Not a sharp veer one way or another
>Grange say that they might have been handed this direction by circumstance rather than choice (reading between the lines Pascal)
>Grange fairly says he has a ton of equity, but it’s also a fair question about Masai’s recent track history going forward and it’s a results based business and quite fair to say that next time ownership makes decisions about management, record will be taken into account
>Blake sums up it with legacy/equity building vs the franchise’s future as the question going forward
Decent_Pack_3064
Everyone eventually leaves. And I think that’s no different with ujiri.
Hopefully the next mgmt team is competent
earlyearlgray
If that scumbag Ed Rogers takes over I’ll be so sad
Potential-Comment960
I want ujiri to lead us to 1 more chip. I wanna see if he could successfully build another championship team around barnes.
I think he’s probs one of the best executives in sports and it would be terrible for the raps to lose him before they’re competitive again.
Professional-Doubt14
I wouldn’t want to be the one making the decision to fire Masai, and his record leading up to the championship speaks for itself. But we still haven’t fully processed how much he is to blame for the way this season played out.
Pascal and OG were his guys, he was loyal to them, and they both chose to walk away. Pascal left us at the worst possible time and tried to play hardball with Masai for a super max. Hopefully we learn more about what exactly happened with Pascal because things went sour quick. Darko had him standing in the corner, he stopped trying on D, just a terrible end to his Raptors career.
He was all about developing a winning culture and bringing players through the G league pipeline, that has been a complete failure for years. We are reduced to signing random 10 day guys from other teams and instantly throwing them into the starting lineup, no chance for them to gain confidence, just a joke.
He was a skilled trader who would fleece other GMs, now he struggles to find trading partners, he gets backed into a corner and bent over by the Pacers, and he ends up keeping Bruce Brown who looks like he doesn’t even want to play for us.
Poeltl, tanking at the wrong time with no pick, enough has been said here.
Firing Nurse because he doesn’t like the selfish play, now we have Darko running out the lowest effort defense since the Triano days. I would rather see selfish iso ball with some effort on D than whatever this is. Maybe Nurse was checked out and had to go but the winning culture went with him.
When you list it all out it looks bad, management has an impossible decision, because if they do fire Masai the next guy could easily be worse. But Masai has done more harm than good since 2019.
Winter_Purpose8695
IMO reporting to one guy who knows sports entertainment is better than reporting to the board so this one will probably be a win in that aspect. But all of that hinges on the competency of this incoming CEO
RareCreamer
He stayed longer than a lot of us thought. The team is clearly a long ways away from winning, I’d honestly say 5 years if we’re lucky.
If he doesn’t, I’m sure Bobby will just contiune with the vision so I don’t see much impact.
n3moh0es
now these are the questions we want to see be asked! lmfao
GawldDawlg
He’s ran his course
Killyouifyouuseemoji
Masai is great but having a good gm is becoming less and less important it seems
IHavePoopedBefore
The idea of Masai leaving used to stress me out.
Now I don’t care
Decent_Pack_3064
the earliest timeline back to competitiveness is 2025-2026 i think
StatementCertain9823
He’s been bad since the 2020-21 season, time for a new vision
Massive_Secretary658
We need a GM who isn’t going to cry like a *you know what* after trading a player
littlebaldboi
I’ll be so sad when he leaves… only those who followed the team during the dark days of Babcock know how fortunate we are to have Ujiri. Ever since he became GM, we’ve become one of the most winningest franchises over the past decade, hosted an all star game, won a championship… I really don’t want to go back
GuessableSevens
I’m fine with Masai staying at this point because the chips have been played, even though he played them terribly.
I’m just confused why he has so many cult followers. He peaked 5 years ago and aside from drafting Barnes (which i acknowledge was genius), has fucked up literally every major decision.
People aren’t black and white, they have mixed qualities. Masai is not perfect – he has been a terrible POBO the last 2 seasons especially. You can support keeping him, but there’s no point in thinking people are crazy for wanting him out. He’s fucked up enough for an average person to lose the job. We don’t need to be cultist supporters.
16 Comments
Grange had an appearance on the Raptors show about his and Friedman’s MLSE article yesterday, here’s the paraphrased notes:
>Big change in the CEO chair compared to previous years
>Presidents in the org (Masai) were given a ton of freedom/power to pursue the agendas they wanted to do
>Pelley will very much be in charge, going from the board’s hands to Pelley’s hands
>He’s going to be the one reporting to the board about the progress plans for the Raptors for example
>By the nature of that the team presidents are a bit less powerful
>Grange thinks it’ll be the first of what he thinks will be significant changes in MLSE
>A big part of it will be managing the Bell/Rogers relationship
>Bigger change than even Larry taking a stepback
>There’s a world where it doesn’t stay 50/50 (Bell/Rogers) and one of the existing owners becomes the controlling owners
>He speculates that Rogers would be the company that would be the controlling owner
>Speculates that maybe Bell wants to cash out
>Larry will probably be bought out, and then we’ve seen where he’s already started his own sports venture company (WNBA expansion)
>Masai’s deal is for 2 more seasons
>Grange won’t draw a straight line between Larry/Masai but it’s not unreasonable to think that they’re connected
>Questions will be asked on team performance, Grange thinks it’s reasonable based on pre-existing relationships that you could be thinking of a change with Masai and the Raptors
>Blake speculates that timeline regarding how quickly the rebuild will be or will in turn into a re-tool trying to be competitive again is maybe something at the CEO level that’s important for there to be alignment between that person and Masai
>Blake speculates that there’s maybe there’s the ability to trade their picks for win-now piece
>Grange speculates that these changes are not going to affect decisions this offseason
>Not a sharp veer one way or another
>Grange say that they might have been handed this direction by circumstance rather than choice (reading between the lines Pascal)
>Grange fairly says he has a ton of equity, but it’s also a fair question about Masai’s recent track history going forward and it’s a results based business and quite fair to say that next time ownership makes decisions about management, record will be taken into account
>Blake sums up it with legacy/equity building vs the franchise’s future as the question going forward
Everyone eventually leaves. And I think that’s no different with ujiri.
Hopefully the next mgmt team is competent
If that scumbag Ed Rogers takes over I’ll be so sad
I want ujiri to lead us to 1 more chip. I wanna see if he could successfully build another championship team around barnes.
I think he’s probs one of the best executives in sports and it would be terrible for the raps to lose him before they’re competitive again.
I wouldn’t want to be the one making the decision to fire Masai, and his record leading up to the championship speaks for itself. But we still haven’t fully processed how much he is to blame for the way this season played out.
Pascal and OG were his guys, he was loyal to them, and they both chose to walk away. Pascal left us at the worst possible time and tried to play hardball with Masai for a super max. Hopefully we learn more about what exactly happened with Pascal because things went sour quick. Darko had him standing in the corner, he stopped trying on D, just a terrible end to his Raptors career.
He was all about developing a winning culture and bringing players through the G league pipeline, that has been a complete failure for years. We are reduced to signing random 10 day guys from other teams and instantly throwing them into the starting lineup, no chance for them to gain confidence, just a joke.
He was a skilled trader who would fleece other GMs, now he struggles to find trading partners, he gets backed into a corner and bent over by the Pacers, and he ends up keeping Bruce Brown who looks like he doesn’t even want to play for us.
Poeltl, tanking at the wrong time with no pick, enough has been said here.
Firing Nurse because he doesn’t like the selfish play, now we have Darko running out the lowest effort defense since the Triano days. I would rather see selfish iso ball with some effort on D than whatever this is. Maybe Nurse was checked out and had to go but the winning culture went with him.
When you list it all out it looks bad, management has an impossible decision, because if they do fire Masai the next guy could easily be worse. But Masai has done more harm than good since 2019.
IMO reporting to one guy who knows sports entertainment is better than reporting to the board so this one will probably be a win in that aspect. But all of that hinges on the competency of this incoming CEO
He stayed longer than a lot of us thought. The team is clearly a long ways away from winning, I’d honestly say 5 years if we’re lucky.
If he doesn’t, I’m sure Bobby will just contiune with the vision so I don’t see much impact.
now these are the questions we want to see be asked! lmfao
He’s ran his course
Masai is great but having a good gm is becoming less and less important it seems
The idea of Masai leaving used to stress me out.
Now I don’t care
the earliest timeline back to competitiveness is 2025-2026 i think
He’s been bad since the 2020-21 season, time for a new vision
We need a GM who isn’t going to cry like a *you know what* after trading a player
I’ll be so sad when he leaves… only those who followed the team during the dark days of Babcock know how fortunate we are to have Ujiri. Ever since he became GM, we’ve become one of the most winningest franchises over the past decade, hosted an all star game, won a championship… I really don’t want to go back
I’m fine with Masai staying at this point because the chips have been played, even though he played them terribly.
I’m just confused why he has so many cult followers. He peaked 5 years ago and aside from drafting Barnes (which i acknowledge was genius), has fucked up literally every major decision.
People aren’t black and white, they have mixed qualities. Masai is not perfect – he has been a terrible POBO the last 2 seasons especially. You can support keeping him, but there’s no point in thinking people are crazy for wanting him out. He’s fucked up enough for an average person to lose the job. We don’t need to be cultist supporters.