Thoughts now on parting ways with Masai

[DelAbbot]

The majority of his run, we sucked badly. That sums him up for me.

What are you talking about?

We got to the playoffs far too often. Tankers hate that. Therefore the suckage was bad, in that we didn't suck enough.

Interesting that suckage autocorrects to Huckabee.

Harcore Fenton Mun hated TWO for years, until the season following FVV leaving and we traded for Poeltl. He then just snapped - became full on Masai-hating.

My TWO brothers are sending our thoughts and prayers.

[mademan]

Masai seemingly cant help himself with "his" guys. Doesnt want to trade them and is always willing to overpay them. Guy has real skill evaluating talent and how it fits on a team, but he becomes too attached

Like I see all these rookie contract extensions given to guys who have a lot more value than IQ but still receiving less money than him. Why?

[dTox]

I was fine with letting him go, Masai just wasn't himself over the past 5 years,
-he was trading first round draft picks (including a lottery picks) when drafting was his core strength, and the team was in a rebuild (that was very confusing)
-He wasn't winning on trades: we lost the Siakam trade, the OG trade, the trade for Jakob, and the trade for Thad Young
-He also had a very difficult time trying to figure out players that were good fit next to each other, time and time again we had a SL that did not play to Siakam or Scottie's strengths, he surrounded our non-shooting PF's with other non-shooters.
-Treated Siakam like crap on his way out
-Let Fred walk for nothing, trading him earlier when he had value would have been the right move (one can say the same about OG and Siakam, that we could have gotten better returns had he traded them a year or two earlier, instead of letting their value tank by waiting until contract year).

The fact that he was either paid the highest or was at least a top 3 highest paid exec based on such mediocre results during that 5 year run, probably nailed the coffin.

It was time to move on.

[Nature]

He sold his soul to the Spurs. That's the only way I can explain the deafeningly abysmal Jakub and Thad trades. Those two trades set us back 5+ years.

Not to mention the mistreatment of Pascal and the inability to turn Fred into assets.

Honestly, those moves border on gross negligence.

[ATLTimekeeper]

He also said we could be better with Dennis Schroeder instead of Fred. At that point, his credibility was really starting to go downhill. He salary dumped Schroeder months later.

[MiamiSPX]

The fact that he was either paid the highest or was at least a top 3 highest paid exec based on such mediocre results during that 5 year run, probably nailed the coffin.

That, and also admitting last year that he hadn't been as involved as he should have been. That sealed the deal IMO.

It was the right time to part ways. The platitudes were starting to wear thin on those who could see right through them. I know he is well respected around the league but at the end of the day it didn't result in a single FA of note.

[DreamTeam09]

He sold his soul to the Spurs. That's the only way I can explain the deafeningly abysmal Jakub and Thad trades. Those two trades set us back 5+ years.

Not to mention the mistreatment of Pascal and the inability to turn Fred into assets.

Honestly, those moves border on gross negligence.

.you would rather Zach Edey or Rob Dillingham over Jakob? you guys are just using media talking points "don't trade lottery picks" it was a weak draft We got a starting C for our top 9 pick, we had a 9th pick this yr and none of the players in that range would've cracked our starting line-up rookie yr regardless

[DreamTeam09]

The fact that he was either paid the highest or was at least a top 3 highest paid exec based on such mediocre results during that 5 year run, probably nailed the coffin.

That, and also admitting last year that he hadn't been as involved as he should have been. That sealed the deal IMO.

It was the right time to part ways. The platitudes were starting to wear thin on those who could see right through them. I know he is well respected around the league but at the end of the day it didn't result in a single FA of note.

Toronto has never been a capspace team, that's not going to change with anyone else at helm, his respect shows up in dealings with other organizations, teams were literally afraid of losing deals to us at one point was the verbiage around the NBA circles

[TheGeneral99]

The majority of his run, we sucked badly. That sums him up for me.

Genuinely starting to get sick of people like you. Sorry if that's hostile but this is just complete ****.

The Raptors had 5 total playoff appearances before Masai showed up in nearly 20 years as a Franchise. Most of those were ones were we barely sneaked in.

He delivered 7 straight years of playoffs, ALL OF WHICH we were a top 4 seed for. This also included multiple trips to the conference finals and an NBA Championship, the first in the history of the franchise. The post 2020-Raptors haven't been great but to say we "sucked badly" for most of his time here is **** stupid. Seriously get out of our fanbase.

So tired of these entitled fans who bandwagoned to the Raptors when we got good in the late 2010s and aren't even aware of how **** this franchise was before Masai got here. Used to celebrate with pizza for scoring 100 points and spend every night praying that Bargnani would learn how to grab more than 4 rebounds in a game.

Exactly this...either these fans are too young to remember how bad it was before Masai or just plain haters.

[ItsDanger]

Masai was well past his expiry date. It's still unclear how much was Bobby and how much was his influence, especially in last 2-3 years.

[TerryTate]

TBH, I feel that too many people are faulting him with things.

He's human, he wanted to give the FVV, OG, PS Core a run with Poetl (Traded happened too late). People got injured and we didn't make PO's....
It was loyalty to a core that took him to a championship, call it what you may.... Poor decisions, bad timing (which I do agree with), but it is the human aspect of bonds and loyalty to a team and its core.

Yes, that decision set us back a few years, but personally, I think he pivoted pretty well with our teams current core.
Only time will time after this season on his final transactions as team president.

[Duffman100]

TBH, I feel that too many people are faulting him with things.

He's human, he wanted to give the FVV, OG, PS Core a run with Poetl (Traded happened too late). People got injured and we didn't make PO's....
It was loyalty to a core that took him to a championship, call it what you may.... Poor decisions, bad timing (which I do agree with), but it is the human aspect of bonds and loyalty to a team and its core.

Yes, that decision set us back a few years, but personally, I think he pivoted pretty well with our teams current core.
Only time will time after this season on his final transactions as team president.

I think my issue is they had no bench and really no way of procuring a bench without some just insane luck in the 2nd round and UDFA. They overindexed on our ability to do that and when that failed, they tried trades like the Thad one which, while I think the impact is exagerrated, wasn't a good trade.

if we had a competent bench, along with Poeltl, sure maybe that's a 50 win team and you can then make a push with a bigger name.

Instead, we were essentially 6 deep (Poeltl, Siakam, Barnes, Trent, FVV, OG) with no help behind there.

The trade for Poeltl was just ill timed. Value for Poeltl was relatively fair, but considering we could use a shot in the lottery along with the impact on our pick, it just wasn't the right move.

[dTox]

The fact that he was either paid the highest or was at least a top 3 highest paid exec based on such mediocre results during that 5 year run, probably nailed the coffin.

That, and also admitting last year that he hadn't been as involved as he should have been. That sealed the deal IMO.

It was the right time to part ways. The platitudes were starting to wear thin on those who could see right through them. I know he is well respected around the league but at the end of the day it didn't result in a single FA of note.

Toronto has never been a capspace team, that's not going to change with anyone else at helm, his respect shows up in dealings with other organizations, teams were literally afraid of losing deals to us at one point was the verbiage around the NBA circles

That's actually not a constructive way to look at it, what I see is a man who lost the ability to read the room so much that his peers don't even want to deal with him, which led to the deterioration of the assets (Pascal, OG, Fred) because we held on to them for so long that they either walked for nothing, or we didn't get good value back when we were forced to trade them, what I see is someone who lost the ability to negotiate and make good trades. You are judged based on the moves you make, not based on the fact that people just don't want to deal with you (if anything, that's a negative quality).
This analogy I'm about to use is not exactly a great one, but here it goes: I am in tech sales, if I were to have a crappy year because I wasn't making any deals, and my response to my boss' evaluation of me is that "I am so well respected that customer's are afraid of losing deals with me", I'd either be shown the door or get chewed out. Masai went from being one of the best deal makers, to somebody other GM's just don't want to make deals with, unless they know he's between a rock and a hard place (Siakam and OG, becoming free agents)

[DreamTeam09]

That, and also admitting last year that he hadn't been as involved as he should have been. That sealed the deal IMO.

It was the right time to part ways. The platitudes were starting to wear thin on those who could see right through them. I know he is well respected around the league but at the end of the day it didn't result in a single FA of note.

Toronto has never been a capspace team, that's not going to change with anyone else at helm, his respect shows up in dealings with other organizations, teams were literally afraid of losing deals to us at one point was the verbiage around the NBA circles

That's actually not a constructive way to look at it, what I see is a man who lost the ability to read the room so much that his peers don't even want to deal with him, which led to the deterioration of the assets (Pascal, OG, Fred) because we held on to them for so long that they either walked for nothing, or we didn't get good value back when we were forced to trade them, what I see is someone who lost the ability to negotiate and make good trades. You are judged based on the moves you make, not based on the fact that people just don't want to deal with you (if anything, that's a negative quality).
This analogy I'm about to use is not exactly a great one, but here it goes: I am in tech sales, if I were to have a crappy year because I wasn't making any deals, and my response to my boss' evaluation of me is that "I am so well respected that customer's are afraid of losing deals with me", I'd either be shown the door or get chewed out. Masai went from being one of the best deal makers, to somebody other GM's just don't want to make deals with, unless they know he's between a rock and a hard place (Siakam and OG, becoming free agents)

well I totally disagree that the Pascal and OG deals where bad deals, those were objectively good deals and probably close to the best outcomes for both potential deals. Just because we didn't get a boatload of protected picks or picks that don't belong to us or the trading team for that matter doesn't make it a poor deal. You're reading what you want to read and coming up your outcome based on your own perception. Those picks would be used in the hopes of getting quality players like BI RJ and Quickly

The bolded point goes to show how well Masai did with trades, it's not on indictment on Masai, it's what you want, the flipside would be Joe dumars and teams racing n hoping he picks up their phone call to try & get one over on him.

[Kevin Willis]

I just wonder if there was some truth to the way Rogers felt about him. Maybe his focus WAS in other places. Maybe he didn't deserve the money he was asking for. Maybe there was someone better. I look at the Jays and thinks sometimes the missing ingredient is change.

[DreamTeam09]

I just wonder if there was some truth to the way Rogers felt about him. Maybe his focus WAS in other places. Maybe he didn't deserve the money he was asking for. Maybe there was someone better. I look at the Jays and thinks sometimes the missing ingredient is change.

what changed with the Jays or Raptors, Infact both organizations doubled down from the previous seasons and kept everything intact. The Jays just upped the payroll, Rogers kept everyone intact from both organizations

Because they liked the stability & infrastructure that both team implemented, Masai was literally the main cause of our stability & infrastructure.

If you didn't like the job the head guy was doing you wouldn't keep and extend everyone around him. Clearly this was a personal matter that the higher ups wanted control over

[OAKLEY_2]

I just wonder if there was some truth to the way Rogers felt about him. Maybe his focus WAS in other places. Maybe he didn't deserve the money he was asking for. Maybe there was someone better. I look at the Jays and thinks sometimes the missing ingredient is change.

Remember that is 32 years between trips to the series with Rogers.

For many solid reasons after Colangelo, mlse decided to hire a fixer with sport mgt. DNA and he hired Masai. Hell, he was allowed to draft plans for post championship parade routes in 2013 a full 6 years before winning it all. The worst move of the Ujiri era was getting the guys stuck under the Gardiner but that piece of cement trash shoulda been torn down 50 years ago and outside Masai's resume of fan blame.

Ujiri mostly sat on Colangelo assets Derozan and Lowry. He never really tore anything down. He even kept the Colangelo coach Dwayne Casey. He had a deal lined up for Derozan that would have fetched Drew Bledsoe. Ouch. He had a deal lined up for Lowry that would have brought in Iman Shumpert. OMG. Sanity, or much luck, intervened and they never made those deals. Let the era begin!

I think Poetl re-acquisition was used as Paskal retention strategy in lieu of some lowballing. Paskal and Fred thought Raps did not want to max either with the 2019 championship quickly fading into history and after Bubble-Tampa pandemic horrors. Bobby, apparently, wanted to retain Paskal but with Lowry an aging asset they fumbled returns on pricey retention plans. Which appeared as no real plans. Much like Bosh with Colangelo.

OG seemed like he should be the priority. He was not once he changed agents. Paskal thought he was alpha and Raps mgt. acted like Paskal was ungrateful for the career from nowhere opportuniy. Paskal, who at #27 became a multiple allstar. If any tangible criticism is justified it is managing their success in drafting OG-Paskal-Fred in terms of retention. Increasing costs of Max overpays destroyed any possible success of converting value. The money just got ridiculous vis a vis thinking there was enough tangible upside in taking another run. A run with no Serge, Gasol or Lowry and Balmer doing his money thing to grab Kawhi.

So yes there was a best before date and it was pre bubble Tampa. In hindsight. Run it back was a lame duck one leg never to be an option.

[VanWest82]

TBH, I feel that too many people are faulting him with things.

He's human, he wanted to give the FVV, OG, PS Core a run with Poetl (Traded happened too late). People got injured and we didn't make PO's....
It was loyalty to a core that took him to a championship, call it what you may.... Poor decisions, bad timing (which I do agree with), but it is the human aspect of bonds and loyalty to a team and its core.

Yes, that decision set us back a few years, but personally, I think he pivoted pretty well with our teams current core.
Only time will time after this season on his final transactions as team president.

I think my issue is they had no bench and really no way of procuring a bench without some just insane luck in the 2nd round and UDFA. They overindexed on our ability to do that and when that failed, they tried trades like the Thad one which, while I think the impact is exagerrated, wasn't a good trade.

if we had a competent bench, along with Poeltl, sure maybe that's a 50 win team and you can then make a push with a bigger name.

Instead, we were essentially 6 deep (Poeltl, Siakam, Barnes, Trent, FVV, OG) with no help behind there.

The trade for Poeltl was just ill timed. Value for Poeltl was relatively fair, but considering we could use a shot in the lottery along with the impact on our pick, it just wasn't the right move.

I would argue the other big mistake was misreading the state of the locker room. Fred walking clearly caught the FO off guard, but the way the team was playing, Masai having to call out the selfish play, and Fred's comment about Scottie in that final presser about how "you can't make anyone grow up" was evidence something was up, and likely had been for a while. Meanwhile, the fanbase had long since turned on Fred. Players feel that. Masai either miscalculated or turned a blind eye to what was staring him in the face that year.

Jak trade was like a couple with a strained relationship deciding to have a baby to fix the marriage. It worked for a very short while...sorta.

[WiggOuts]

Masai was the goat Raptors GM, his eye for talent is what got us to the highest peaks. He built a stacked team by capitalizing on every acquired player, the value was insane on some of the deals...he has never been great when it came to contracts, he was decent in the past but kind of got lucky with the players becoming significantly better over the course of their deals. He never really improved that aspect of his job. I think the IQ deal got ownership all **** up, then he handed BI a big deal as well as Jak...whether these deals were good or bad i think ownership wasnt happy with how freely he was spending their money on an unproven team

[DelAbbot]

This thread is like an airing of grievances against Masai.
Very therapeutic