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The former Toronto Raptors president was appointed as a United Nations sustainable goals development advocate on Thursday, according a release sent out by Giants of Africa. Ujiri, who parted with the Raptors in June, will join a group of international leaders in the SDG group, which aims to end global poverty and hunger while increasing well-being and education.
Masai Ujiri will spend the run-up to NBA training camps expanding his global horizons on another of his passions. The former president and vice-chair of the Raptors has been appointed a sustainable development goal advocate by United Nations secretary António Guterres, the group announced Thursday.
It didn’t come as a surprise to people around the NBA that the Raptors ultimately named general manager Bobby Webster their permanent head of basketball operations, Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report said in a live stream on Wednesday (YouTube link). In fact, according to Fischer, the only surprise during the process was that Toronto publicly announced a search for a new top executive after parting ways with president Masai Ujiri. “Someone I consult with who is involved in (executive) search firm stuff was taken aback by the fact that was even put out publicly,” Fischer said. “He was taking it – and the league was taking it – as a foregone conclusion that Bobby Webster would be running the show.”
The Raptors, who traded away Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby during the 2023/24 season, have missed the playoffs for three straight seasons, but the expectation is that they’ll be more competitive going forward, per Fischer. “The Raptors have definitely been given some type of formal pressure, some type of direction from their new leadership of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to end this sort of rebuild era they’ve been in,” Fischer said, adding that the team will be aiming to claim a top-six playoff spot this season, not simply make the play-in tournament.
According to multiple sources, some of the external candidates that were interviewed for the president position pushed back on recent roster decisions made by Ujiri and his front office. One went as far as calling the trade to acquire Ingram in February a “desperate Hail Mary.” They questioned the team’s post-championship leadership and internal development and pointed out its salary crunch – going into the new season with the league’s eighth-highest payroll despite winning 55 games over the past two years and having the 21st-highest projected win total for the 2025-26 campaign, per FanDuel.
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A new $26 million sports-themed hotel in Rwanda that aims to tap into the country’s growing hospitality market will be a template for expanding other sporting businesses across Africa, the former National Basketball Association executive that spearheaded the project told Semafor. Masai Ujiri, former vice president of NBA franchise Toronto Raptors and a retired basketball player, plans to build a collection of hotels in Africa following the opening of Zaria Court, his company’s first hotel property, in the Rwandan capital Kigali in July.
When I was in Las Vegas for Summer League, the first questions anyone from other organizations or other NBA media had for me centred around Ujiri: why MLSE president Keith Pelley decided to let him go and what Ujiri will do next. The first part has been well-covered, but the latter not as much. The short answer to that is: whatever he wants. He had one year left on a five-year deal that averaged around $15 million per season, and coming off the most successful run in Raptors history, he was able to negotiate some significant long-term incentives that track the increase in the franchise’s value. He won’t need to work anytime soon, and I will be very surprised if he takes a job in the NBA this season.
Longer term? He would be an attractive candidate to head an expansion team, which is now firmly on the NBA’s radar, or could be an intriguing choice to run the NBA’s proposed addition of an NBA-sanctioned league in Europe. In the meantime, Ujiri would be an obvious candidate for leadership roles as they open across the NBA, with some league insiders keeping an eye on the Miami Heat, given that Heat president Pat Riley recently turned 80.
According to multiple sources, Ujiri was the “driving force” behind the Brandon Ingram deal at last February’s trade deadline, while others in the room were less convinced about the fit and the timing. To just assume that Webster would pick up where Ujiri left off might be misguided. They could use a fresh perspective after missing the playoffs in four of the past five seasons, but they don’t necessarily need to look outside of the organization for that. The grass isn’t always greener.
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The elephant in the room is the one person who’s no longer in the room: the recently dismissed team president, Masai Ujiri. Nobody is talking about their former boss or even speaking his name aloud. Ask somebody about him, on or off the record, and you’ll get a scripted response, something along the lines of: "He did great things and will be missed, but life goes on." Requests to make general manager Bobby Webster or other members of the front office available to the media have been declined, even for stories unrelated to Ujiri, and the sense is that the code of silence is a directive coming from the very top. The nervous energy is palpable.
Vivek Jacob: Kawhi Leonard will make an appearance at Masai Ujiri's Giants of Africa Festival. Leonard will mentor campers, open a new 🏀 court in partnership with Giants of Africa at St. Ignatius School, and host a clinic for 50 local youth in one of Kigali’s most underserved districts.
Obviously, the departure of Masai (Ujiri) was a big development for the franchise. What was your reaction?" Darko Rajakovic: "It's obviously a big change. He was with the team for 12 years and brought a lot of success to the organization. But like anything in life, those situations happen. We’re going to miss him, but we’re also very well-equipped to continue moving forward with the leadership we have in the front office. I'm excited about what’s next for us — and for him."
Josh Lewenberg: Jakob Poeltl on Masai Ujiri: "He’s the guy that in the NBA first believed in me. He’s the one that drafted me, so from that standpoint alone I owe him a lot... Obviously, it won’t be easy but we have other talented guys in those positions that can hopefully fill those footsteps.”
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