Arthur Griffiths, the founding owner of the now-defunct Vancouver Grizzlies, recently opened up about his thoughts regarding the Toronto Raptors' remarkable playoffs run.
Griffiths admitted that while he is delighted by how the Raptors have done tremendously to represent the country of Canada in the NBA, he is still feeling a bit regretful about how his own team was unable to reach the same heights.
Article Continues Below“It's a little bittersweet in the sense that that's what I'd like our team to be doing if they were still in the league,” Griffiths said, via Gemma Cartens-Smith of Chat News Today. “But frankly, that's life. … It makes me smile as well.”
The Vancouver Grizzlies was founded in 1995 when the NBA expanded to 30 teams. This was the same time the Raptors also came into the picture, as the two Canada-based franchises hoped to extend the reach of the league beyond the U.S.
Unfortunately for the Grizzlies, their time in the NBA was short-lived, as the franchise moved to Memphis in 2002, putting an end to Vancouver's brief seven-year run in the league.
As Griffiths expressed, it appears that he has yet to fully get over his former team's failure, and that this is something he still carries to this day. Nonetheless, Griffiths might just get another shot at it — assuming that he still has the resources and the desire to do so — with rumors circling about another expansion by the NBA. It's not going to be easy, but if ever this does come to fruition, he will have the advantage of hind sight this time around.