Toronto Raptors team president Masai Ujiri will enter the final season of his current deal. Talks about an extension have stalled this off-season. In a conference call with media, Ujiri admitted that they just haven't had the time. There have been a lot of other things on his plate which has sidetracked progress between him and the Raptors organization.
Via Josh Lewenberg of TSN.com:
“There’s just been so much [going on],” he said. “Honestly, it’s not a matter of not doing it, I think there’s just been so much [and] I’ve pushed it [back] until, I think, we get through a lot of this. There’s just so much going on with this relocation, and the focus, I don’t want to be distracted that way.”
While the coronavirus pandemic has obviously impacted the entire league, Toronto is arguably the most affected among the 30 NBA teams. The league needed to find the 2019 NBA champs a temporary home with the Canadian government restricting travel to the country. Ujiri obviously needed to be spearheading the process and that may have taken up a lot of his time. Eventually, the Raptors settled in on Tampa as their stopgap home for this campaign.
Apart from their short-term relocation, Ujiri certainly needed to make decisions with free agency. Toronto lost two key big men in the off-season in Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol, and the former Executive of the Year needed to find replacements to fill in for their departures. Eventally, the Raptors signed Aron Baynes and Alex Len to replenish their front court depth this 2020-21 campaign.
It's certainly in the the Raptors' best interests to keep the Nigerian-Canadian executive for the long haul. Ujiri is, in fact, considered the mastermind responsible for Toronto's historic run to their first ever NBA championship in 2019.
Nonetheless, it seems like both sides want to keep their relationship going. It's just a matter of finding the right time to strike the deal and sign on the dotted line.
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