Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri is a wanted man after successfully orchestrating the Raptors' historic championship run. Even former U.S. President Barack Obama has reportedly been involved in the Washington Wizards' recruitment campaign for the 48-year-old's signature.
Obama has supposedly been so impressed by Ujiri that the former commander-in-chief has tried to help the Wizards with their reported pursuit of the man behind Toronto's first ever-championship in franchise history. NBC Sports Washington's Josh Luckenbaugh passed along this tidbit from The Athletic's Ethan Strauss:
“I hear Barack Obama's a part of that whole Masai recruitment to D.C.,” Strauss said on a recent episode of the “Back To Back” podcast. “I've heard Obama wants Masai in D.C. Obama wants to do something with basketball.”
There have been conflicting reports about the Wizards' plans to pursue Ujiri, but it still doesn't get any bigger than this for him, with no less than a former president of the United States reportedly wanting to get involved in bringing him to D.C. President Obama has long been known to be a fan of the NBA, but this is the first time we've heard of him wanting to jump in on the actual operations of any team. Obviously, this speaks volumes of how well Ujiri has done for himself over the past few years.
Then again, not even the former president may be influential enough to convince Ujiri to turn his back on something he has invested so much of his time and effort in building. He certainly has a good thing going on in Toronto right now, so there should be no overwhelming motivation for him to leave anytime soon.
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