Raptors President Masai Ujiri held his annual state-of-the union address yesterday and a meeting with the media that has turned into "a love-fest” in years past saw its mood turn "decidedly south this year," according to Frank Zicarelli of the TORONTO SUN. The mystique surrounding Ujiri “no longer exists,” and the team’s 2019 title run is a “distant memory.” Zicarelli wrote “under no circumstance” can the recently completed season “ever be duplicated when so much was out of the team’s hands.” What the Raptors did control, they “often failed to execute on.” What is left to ask is “how much faith moving forward does one have in Ujiri and whether he can turn this around.” The Raptors are part of the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment umbrella at a time when the organization has welcomed a new CEO in Keith Pelley, who “won’t stand pat.” Ujiri’s “biggest supporter” is MLSE Chair Larry Tanenbaum, whose time and influence with MLSE is “ticking.” And with it, “so is Ujiri’s time.” Zicarelli wrote as he “picks up the pieces from a truly regrettable season,” the question “must be asked whether Ujiri will still be in charge to see this rebuild play out to its end” (TORONTO SUN, 4/17).
NEW TERRITORY: In Toronto, Dave Feschuk wrote this is “new territory” for Ujiri, “arriving at work every morning and encountering a mess of your own making.” Feschuk wrote this “isn’t about one tanked season in which the injury list grew while Toronto’s odds in the draft lottery got better.” This is about the five seasons since the championship, during which the Raptors have “won a grand total of one playoff series and a painfully indecisive Ujiri has spun his executive wheels.” Ujiri’s “list of executive missteps over that span is considerable.” Feschuk wrote it “would be fair” for Pelley to “wonder what he is doing right.” The Raptors “won’t be this bad next year.” And if all goes well next year, the Raptors “project to be a slightly less impressive middle-of-the-road playoff team, albeit with more expensive tickets.” Except the years “keep piling up” and the path to “something superior remains elusive” (TORONTO STAR, 4/17).
COST OF BUSINESS: In Toronto, Ryan Wolstat wrote even though the Raptors just had “one of the worst seasons in franchise history,” ticket prices are “going up.” Prices “rose steadily over the years” as the Raptors emerged as a contender and then an NBA champion. But for those who thought a “pause was in order,” ownership had “other ideas.” Ujiri was asked yesterday what his role is in ticket pricing and said that he has “some input,” but “mostly blamed market factors and admitted to having some sympathy for fans.” Ujiri said, “I would say it’s above me, but it’s also concerning my team. So yes, we have 100% input in this.” Ujiri: “We have to look at the NBA. I think we have to consider our market (one of the largest in North America and by far the biggest in Canada, not to mention the Raptors fans across the country who travel to attend games) and we have to consider the fans, too, in every way.” The Raptors also spent a year playing in Tampa Bay during the COVID-19 pandemic after the bubble before that, so the team has been “looking for ways to make up for all of that lost revenue” (TORONTO SUN, 4/17).
