Rumors

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.”

Hoops Rumors

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.

Hoops Rumors

This offseason, the Raptors discussed trades for Kevin Durant, Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, which followed their February acquisition of Brandon Ingram. "This group under head coach Darko [Rajakovic] expects to really be a player in the playoff conversation here in the Eastern Conference," reports Jake Fischer. "They don't just want to be a play-in team. They want to be a team that really pushes for the postseason for the first time in quite some time. "So, what does Bobby Webster have in store now with this full endorsement as head of basketball operations to continue to upgrade this roster? We shall see. But I have the Raptors earmarked already entering this year. It's super early—it's August 20th—but when we get closer to December 15th and we get closer to the February trade deadline, I have the Raptors already earmarked as a buyer."

RealGM

Josh Lewenberg: Bobby Webster on a conference all with the Toronto media: "There’s 30 of these jobs in the NBA but, to me, this is 1 of 1... There’s not a more unique basketball job in the world... I grew up playing basketball as a small kid and to have it lead all the way here is unbelievable"

Twitter

Michael Grange: MLSE has put off search for a president and extended Bobby Webster as GM. He will have runway and leeway to grow/develop team as he sees fit, per sources. Presidents title could follow over time.

Twitter

“When we weighed the many considerations, including roster construction, team culture and competitive landscape, it made perfect sense to officially hand the team to Bobby and give him the time and support to allow his plan to develop,” MLSE president Keith Pelley said.

Toronto Star

The Raptors spoke to several candidates for the team's top executive position, but Bobby Webster impressed Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley and other MLSE officials ever since the process for Ujiri's replacement started in late June. Pelley and Webster spent critical time together during the NBA's Summer League in Las Vegas, allowing MLSE to view Webster's management style and giving Webster the opportunity to explain his process in the role.

ESPN

Shams Charania: Just in: The Toronto Raptors are appointing general manager Bobby Webster as the team’s head of basketball operations and the sides have reached a new contract, sources tell ESPN. Webster joined the Raptors in 2013 as Masai Ujiri’s first hire and now lands the top executive role.

Twitter

There hasn’t been a lot of talk around MLSE’s search for a new president to replace Ujiri, though a number of league insiders I have spoken with believe that the team’s general manager, Bobby Webster, is the leading candidate for the role. “Bobby’s to lose” was a line I heard around Las Vegas, though how much of that was informed speculation and how much was deductive reasoning — Webster is a well-liked and well-respected executive both within the MLSE and across the NBA, so why mess with it? — was hard to discern.

SportsNet

Webster is interested in the job, which is the first step. Moving Webster up a peg to president explains why one source said that the names they had heard that the search — led by CAA Executive Search — had reached out to were some lower-tier executives, most of whom would make more sense as additions to the Raptors front office's overall horsepower working for someone like Webster rather than in a team president role.

SportsNet

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.

TSN

As if the situation wasn’t precarious enough already, imagine asking Webster to report to somebody with less relevant experience, who beat him out for the job that he wanted and felt that he earned. He was recently given a contract extension, along with the other prominent members of his leadership team, but according to sources, those deals run through the 2026-27 season. Hardly a long-term commitment or something that would preclude a new president from cleaning house and bringing in their own people.

TSN

Pelley said he and Ujiri had been talking about the executive’s future for the last few months. According to Pelley, Ujiri requested he be able to run the draft if a change was going to ultimately be made, even though the franchise extended the contracts of general manager Bobby Webster, assistant general manager Dan Tolzman and would be looking to hire a new president, a role for which Webster will be interviewed. Pelley said the new president will focus solely on basketball, not business.

New York Times

Raptors general manager Bobby Webster and assistant GM Dan Tolzman recently received contract extensions that were not announce until Friday and now assume day-to-day control of basketball operations while MLSE conducts a search for Ujiri's replacement. We'll have to see to what lengths MLSE is prepared to go in terms of hiring a successor when the significant annual salaries held by Ujiri and former Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan are believed to have factored in strongly to the dismissals of both lead executives in the space of the past five weeks.

marcstein.substack.com