Breaking: Rogers Aquires Bell Stake In MLSE

[ItsDanger]

Possible comparable is Dolan with Knicks/Rangers who's had both since late 90s. I know on the Rangers front, he tends to stay out of it. Not so much with Knicks in the past. But after many years of ups and downs, both franchises are on solid footing currently.

[OAKLEY_2]

Final nail: thy Leafs.

[OAKLEY_2]

Free Toronto FC. Can't kill it all.

[JB7]

First they killed HNIC. Next the Jays. Now the Raptors. Hey TO sports much?

Hey, at least we had a great run with Masai, and a championship out of it. More than can be said of the Leafs.

[ForeverTFC]

Joe Dumars won a title in Detroit and came very close to winning a second one the next season, had a much better post-title run with his team than Masai has had here and they still canned him when they went through too many losing seasons. That's the way it works, what you've done recently is far more important than what you did a decade ago.

You should be embarrassed by your takes.

Dumars went 5 straight seasons with the Pistons missing the playoffs and was gone, Masai has missed the playoffs in 3 of the last 4 seasons and quite likely will miss it 5 of the last 6 by the time his contract is up with the way this team is headed. In some ways Dumars was more successful with the Pistons than Masai has been with the Raptors.

Presti missed the playoffs for 3 straight years. Should he have been fired last year? Dumars has had more success than Presit ever has with OKC! Ainge has missed 2 years in a row, likely to be at least 3 years. Should he be fired? Spurs haven't made the playoffs for 5 years, time for Pop to go right? Or maybe, like Masai, they all decided to lose in multiple of those seasons while Dumars was trying to win the entire time. Or they all have future cornerstones they drafted through the losing while Dumars whiffed over and over and over and over...

BTW, ever look at Dumar's draft track record? I don't think you have.

If Ed isn't paying you, I feel bad for you.

[CPT]

Gotta hope the WNBA team is good.

I think the WNBA team is good. In fact, Ed's first order of business will be to upgrade their change rooms, which will conveniently be right next to his office.

That's... not what I meant.

The WNBA is notably not under Ed Rogers' control, because he didn't want it to be. Larry T went out and got the team outside of MLSE.

I hope they are good, because I'd like a successful basketball team in Toronto, and under Rogers management, it won't be the Raptors.

[Randle McMurphy]

Fantastic news for the Raptors who have been in a mediocre cycle for almost a half decade now.

Ed has put a ton of money into the Blue Jays in recent years which helped them make the playoffs in 3 of the last 5 years (and would have been 5 out of 5 with a better manager/FO).

There’s also no way he will continue paying Masai Ujiri that much to make mistake after mistake in basketball operations given their history. We may finally get some real much needed change in the front office again.

[Raps in 4]

Fantastic news for the Raptors who have been a mediocre cycle for almost a half decade now. Ed has put a ton of money into the Blue Jays/SkyDome in recent years.

There’s also no way he will continue paying Masai Ujiri that much to make mistake after mistake in basketball operations given their history. We may finally get some real much needed change in the front office again.

Ah yes, the guy who has been paying Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins since 2016 to deliver season after season of mediocrity will be committed to turning the Raptors into a winning franchise again.

[Huskies1947]

I wonder if Bell will look for an NBA expansion/Relocation team for Vancouver or Montreal.

[Randle McMurphy]

Fantastic news for the Raptors who have been a mediocre cycle for almost a half decade now. Ed has put a ton of money into the Blue Jays/SkyDome in recent years.

There’s also no way he will continue paying Masai Ujiri that much to make mistake after mistake in basketball operations given their history. We may finally get some real much needed change in the front office again.

Ah yes, the guy who has been paying Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins since 2016 to deliver season after season of mediocrity will be committed to turning the Raptors into a winning franchise again.

Jays weren’t mediocre from 2021-2023, they were one of the best teams in baseball and a lot of that was due to the unprecedented money he invested in the team.

And if he’s committed to getting rid of Masai (an objectively terrible basketball executive this decade by any standard), that’s honestly the best start any Raptors fan could hope for. We could easily have been stuck with him for another half decade given 2019 if this didn’t happen.

[Michael Bradley]

AA's contract was up, he wasn't fired. Not sure about the Rogers/Masai stuff since I wasn't really paying attention to it at the time. I think what Masai has done post title has been pretty subpar, depending on how involved he was in the day to day. If Ed tried to fire him right after the title, then yes, Ed was out of his mind.

The AA contract comment is disingenuous, yes it was up but the offer was for Alex to report into Shapiro as just a GM. In any work situation, offering a strong performer (especially a young, up and coming executive) a lateral move or effective demotion is basically saying we don't want you here. His next job with the Dodgers was VP of Baseball Ops and then he got to run the whole show with the Braves as an EVP.

He basically went out and proved his value on the market. Ed, in his infinite wisdom, opted to bet on the stunning mediocrity of the Cleveland braintrust. Shapiro became their GM in 2001 and was there, with various promotions through 2014, winning one Central Division pennant (lol) in the weakest division in baseball.

Rogers was looking for someone to replace Beeston (and by extension, AA) before the 2015 season even started. Shapiro was hired in August 2015, so Rogers began courting him well before AA's trade deadline moves and their big 2nd half run to the division title. AA likely had one foot out the door anyway which is why he traded any prospect with a pulse in 2015 to maximize that window before he left. Once they hired Shapiro and the Jays went on that unforeseen run in the 2nd half of 2015, there was really no where to go. AA couldn't become team president because that was going to be Shapiro's role, so a lateral move was all that was available. AA bet on himself, and he was right. There were a lot of moving parts to this process, especially the fact that in 2013-14, AA proceeded to make two horrendous trades that almost set the team back significantly (which he smartly compensated for with the Donaldson trade, among other moves). There was no reason for Rogers to believe AA was the long term guy in June-July 2015. Things shifted in August/September.

Lots of recency bias on how badly Shapiro/Atkins have managed this "contending window", but the huge tell to me was when they first took over and completely BOTCHED the rebuild, flipping guys like Donaldson at their absolute low point (1.1 WAR, he was 4.9 the year before and 5.2 the year after) for guys like Julian-freakin-Merryweather. He effectively parlayed the Bautista/EE era into nothing in terms of prospects.

Agreed. The moves they made in 2017-19 were mostly awful. They did a lot better from 2020-onwards, but not trading veterans sooner definitely hurt them.

[ciueli]

You should be embarrassed by your takes.

Dumars went 5 straight seasons with the Pistons missing the playoffs and was gone, Masai has missed the playoffs in 3 of the last 4 seasons and quite likely will miss it 5 of the last 6 by the time his contract is up with the way this team is headed. In some ways Dumars was more successful with the Pistons than Masai has been with the Raptors.

Presti missed the playoffs for 3 straight years. Should he have been fired last year? Dumars has had more success than Presit ever has with OKC! Ainge has missed 2 years in a row, likely to be at least 3 years. Should he be fired? Spurs haven't made the playoffs for 5 years, time for Pop to go right? Or maybe, like Masai, they all decided to lose in multiple of those seasons while Dumars was trying to win the entire time. Or they all have future cornerstones they drafted through the losing while Dumars whiffed over and over and over and over...

BTW, ever look at Dumar's draft track record? I don't think you have.

If Ed isn't paying you, I feel bad for you.

Masai has entered zero seasons intending to tank, missed the playoffs 3 out of the last 4 seasons, and will likely miss the playoffs both of the next two seasons. No comparison between what he’s done recently and teams that are built to fail from the first game of the season like OKC was, like the Spurs have been recently too. Even now he’s still hedging his bets by keeping veterans and the recent trades that brought in more veterans.

[Raps in 4]

Fantastic news for the Raptors who have been a mediocre cycle for almost a half decade now. Ed has put a ton of money into the Blue Jays/SkyDome in recent years.

There’s also no way he will continue paying Masai Ujiri that much to make mistake after mistake in basketball operations given their history. We may finally get some real much needed change in the front office again.

Ah yes, the guy who has been paying Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins since 2016 to deliver season after season of mediocrity will be committed to turning the Raptors into a winning franchise again.

Jays weren’t mediocre from 2021-2023, they were one of the best teams in baseball and a lot of that was due to the unprecedented money he invested in the team.

And if he’s committed to getting rid of Masai (an objectively terrible basketball executive this decade by any standard), that’s honestly the best start any Raptors fan could hope for. We could easily have been stuck with him for another half decade given 2019 if this didn’t happen.

The Jays window of "contention" was just two years (we can't even call it three because they didn't make the playoffs during their best season) because, despite spending record amounts on the team (by his standards), Ed hired a FO that didn't know how to construct a sustained winner and actual contender, or even a short-term winner as they punted their 2021 season by continuing to employ the worst manager in baseball.

Getting rid of Masai means nothing if he replaces him with Dumb and Dumber again, and the chances of that happening are very high. Ed surrounds himself with sycophants, not competent people.

[Randle McMurphy]

The Jays window of "contention" was just two years (we can't even call it three because they didn't make the playoffs during their best season) because, despite spending record amounts on the team (by his standards), Ed hired a FO that didn't know how to construct a sustained winner and actual contender, or even a short-term winner as they punted their 2021 season by continuing to employ the worst manager in baseball.

Blame Trudeau and/or Montoyo for not making the playoffs in 2021, but that had nothing to do with the team itself or Ed Rogers. His money that he invested in the team led to them having a 3 year stretch where they were a top 5ish team in the game. I’d take that in an instant at this point for the Raptors who look nowhere close to ever getting back to that level (with no plan at all on how to get there).

Getting rid of Masai means nothing if he replaces him with Dumb and Dumber again, and the chances of that happening are very high. Ed surrounds himself with sycophants, not competent people.

If he was able to get the basketball equivalent of 2015 Shapiro to replace Masai, that would be an enormous upgrade on whatever it is Masai has been doing with this team since 2020.

[Chandan]

Ed Rogers having full control over Toronto sports. What could go wrong.

I dunno. Maybe more Thad trade, Poeltl trade, players betting on themselves, assets expiring, getting crap back for your all nba player. Paying for Bruce Brown. Dragic doesn't want to play for us. Wasted half a year giving Nwora minutes instead the roster spot could be saved for Koloko. Signing Kelly to an above market value contract. Ochai not proving his worth... Etc.
What COULD go wrong?

[kalel123]

I don't follow other sports enough to have a strong opinion on Rogers acquiring Bell's stake in MLSE. I mean, I obviously didn't like that Ed Rogers supposedly didn't want to give Ujiri a new contract after he'd steer us to a championship at the time. But Ujiri has steered us into about the worst place a team could be since then.. so WTF do I know? Neither bad enough to realistically go after top pick nor good enough to go after a playoff spot. We are outside looking in both directions and are in serious need of a shakeup. If this ownership change is what brings it about sooner, then so be it.

[HoopAndTheHarm]

Edward Rogers will see this as his own little fifedom now and run it like that. A man so dense, his father made sure, in writing, that Edward would not have any senior management role at Rogers beyond the family ownership trust.

[ForeverTFC]

Blame Trudeau

Sometimes they say the quiet part out loud

[Scase]

You should be embarrassed by your takes.

Dumars went 5 straight seasons with the Pistons missing the playoffs and was gone, Masai has missed the playoffs in 3 of the last 4 seasons and quite likely will miss it 5 of the last 6 by the time his contract is up with the way this team is headed. In some ways Dumars was more successful with the Pistons than Masai has been with the Raptors.

Presti missed the playoffs for 3 straight years. Should he have been fired last year? Dumars has had more success than Presit ever has with OKC! Ainge has missed 2 years in a row, likely to be at least 3 years. Should he be fired? Spurs haven't made the playoffs for 5 years, time for Pop to go right? Or maybe, like Masai, they all decided to lose in multiple of those seasons while Dumars was trying to win the entire time. Or they all have future cornerstones they drafted through the losing while Dumars whiffed over and over and over and over...

BTW, ever look at Dumar's draft track record? I don't think you have.

If Ed isn't paying you, I feel bad for you.

This is rich, everyone and their mother chanting "Masai never tanks" but then when convenient, "Masai decided to lose". At best I could allow that for Tampa, but even then I don't fully agree. Every single other season he tried his damnedest to win, and trying to say otherwise is just, I don't even know how to describe how delusional that is.

Masai never intended to lose any season on purpose, just stop man, this is insanity.

[DelAbbot]

Fantastic news for the Raptors who have been in a mediocre cycle for almost a half decade now.

Ed has put a ton of money into the Blue Jays in recent years which helped them make the playoffs in 3 of the last 5 years (and would have been 5 out of 5 with a better manager/FO).

There’s also no way he will continue paying Masai Ujiri that much to make mistake after mistake in basketball operations given their history. We may finally get some real much needed change in the front office again.

This cannot NOT be sarcasm.