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The other day, my agent was asking me about the rest of my career. My next team, my next city, where I see myself. I’ve been in trade rumors for so long I think most people probably figure I’ve been having conversations like that all the time. But I would avoid those conversations. I felt like it’s something I can’t control, so let me just block out the noise and try to focus on playing at my highest level. Plus, we heard so many rumors and then they never became anything. So you almost start thinking it’s not real.
But I guess at some point the Raptors pretty much made it known they were going in a different direction, and didn’t want to extend me, and a trade was definitely about to happen. All of a sudden it wasn’t rumors anymore. And I think my agent, you know, he’s doing his job, focusing me on the future, trying to remind me how there’s good things ahead. So he’s like, “P, though….. where do you see yourself?” And he’s going through a bunch of teams, places I’m always getting linked to and whatnot. I thought about it hard. I tried to picture myself playing on the different rosters, living in the different cities, even wearing the different colors. I’m going through them in my head. And I’ll be honest what I answered. I was like, “Where do I see myself? I mean…… Toronto.”
Toronto is just all I’ve known — and all I’ve wanted to know. I never asked for a trade. Maybe this sounds naive, but I felt I could be one of those dudes who spends his whole career on one team. That was my mentality even with the rumors. Like: I helped the Raptors win their first NBA title. So eventually I’ll help them win their second. I always took that as a given, you know? I took a lot of pride in being that guy who’s connecting the past and the future here, and keeping it all as one era. But I also realize it’s a business … and it’s their right to decide when it’s time for an era to end.
None of that changes what Toronto has meant to me, though, and what it will keep meaning. That’s the main thing I wanted to say to everyone: This is home. I put roots down for myself here — like, really, roots. I hope people reading this understand how big that was for me. Once I left Cameroon, I mostly bounced around boarding schools. Even at New Mexico State, I was only there for three years. So I never got that feeling of having a community around me during those parts of my life. And then most people know this, but my dad passed away while I was in college. We were very close, and it happened suddenly, and (because of my visa situation) I wasn’t even able to go to Cameroon for his funeral. So when I got to the league, there was a lot I was going through, and I had this feeling of wanting badly to belong somewhere.
Toronto made me feel like I belonged from day one. I loved the diversity — I’d go out and I’d see Cameroonians, Ghanaians, Mexicans, Koreans, Jamaicans, Europeans, just all types of people from all types of communities. It made me feel comfortable. I remember during my rookie year, me and my brother, we’d go to all these amazing African restaurants and eat the food we loved from back home. Or even just these African stores we could go to, where they’re selling stuff that usually you only can find in Cameroon. Like this specific brand of fried plantains we’d get bags of. Or there’s this Cameroonian meat my brother loves, soya, and he could find that pretty easy in Toronto. Maybe it doesn’t sound like it should be so important, snacks and things. But discovering all of that, and just getting to live in such a diverse place, it kind of let me take my guard down and be me. It was like, OK, if so many people somewhere are foreign … maybe you’re not feeling as foreign.
As far as the fans go, I want to say a few things. One: it’s so much love. Not just the love I feel for them, but that I’ve shared with them. The way that people in Canada have fallen in love with the Raptors while I’ve been here, it’s like it happened in just the right way, at the right time. When we were really ready for it — and needed it. So when we won, it’s not just the usual cliche to be like, “this championship belongs to everyone.” With 2019, we really felt that it’s everyone. Like it was this moment that changed people’s lives. Players, fans, all of us. Maybe that’s a lot for some basketball games, I don’t know. But if you were there then you get what I’m talking about.
