Has anybody ever bumped into Raptors/NBA players or personnel? Got any stories worth sharing?

[Caboclo]

Hey guys, this may seem a bit odd but I always find anecdotal stories with players and staff really interesting. Since it's the offseason, I thought it might be cool for us to share any stories of meeting NBA-related people in this thread.

I'll start:

A few years ago, I got bomb-ass 905 courtside tickets for $50 apiece. (High-fived all the players and got a photo with Delon) Anyways, I end up sitting beside none other than Doug Smith. As soon as I saw him, I started telling him about how much I use to enjoy reading his articles in the star when I was an elementary-school kid. (Had no cable growing up).....He joked around about how fast time passes and was super down-to-earth as he told me that it was his first time attending a 905 game as well, and his job assigned him to cover it. Anyways he spent the rest of the game completely on his phone browsing twitter, and not much else. Super nice guy but he didn't seem to really enjoy basketball that much, or just had a long day......

Anyways you guys got any experiences? (even if for only a few seconds)

Edit:

Bonus story:

Last year, I went to a game against the rockets and sat a few rows behind the basket. Got there early and proceeded to chirp the entire rockets squad as they warmed up from about 15 feet away (I'M A VERY LOUD PERSON).....(called eric gordon a bum who kept missing his corner 3's.....asked harden if he was building a house with his free throw bricks....they ignored me LOL)........anyways, jason terry ends up walking around the court in a suit. I recognized him right away and because I loved the 2011 mavs, I made it my mission to get acknowledged.......so for the next 10 mins, i proceeded to yell all sorts of things at him at the top of my lungs, and at first he put on an excellent poker face. But finally, when I yelled "HEY JASON, WE LOVE YOU IN T-DOT BABY", he looked over, pounded his chest and pointed at me......haha, I guess persistence does pay off.

[supra2k8]

Some guy I played ball a few times with, ran into FVV 2 summers ago at a gas station, showed me a pic of them, they were basically the same height, the guy is 5'9"

I personally have met Moe Pete, and JYD, in a Raptors/SunLife charity event both were super nice. JYD was full of energy, Mo Pete was really genuine. There was a bunch of x raptors players, but I only talked to those 2

[WeTheNorth123]

I met Jamal Maglore at a goodlife on the east end....mot sure what he was doing there!

[720]

Not a raptor but I remember walking past that fat Punjabi player that was in the league for a couple years. Forgot his name. I was at a Raptors game where the jazz blew us out by like 40 points. It was back in the Bosh years.

[LoveMyRaps]

Met the entire Raptors squad/personnel back in like 2011 if I remember correctly. It was at the open practice at Variety Village. Bargnani, DeRozan, Bayless, Amir Johnson, Weems, James Johnson, Magloire, Air Gray, etc.

Also met ex-Raptors and NBA legend Hakeem Olajuwon who did a speech at a mosque nearby.

I also met Stanley Johnson at OVO bounce a couple years back (along with Dwight Powell, Brady Heslip, Sim Bhullar lol). I have no idea why I asked for a pic with Bhullar. I'm honestly ashamed.

Then met FVV and Gasol (and their families) at my workplace last year.

[WeTheNorth123]

Not a raptor but I remember walking past that fat Punjabi player that was in the league for a couple years. Forgot his name. I was at a Raptors game where the jazz blew us out by like 40 points. It was back in the Bosh years.

[Caboclo]

Hey guys, did anything particular strike you?

Don't just mention who you've met! Please try to remember any minor details or impressions they left on you!

[ak06ma]

I saw Aleksandar Radojević outside the ACC after a game. A bunch of people were talking to him so I got an autograph (purple dino hat) and picture with him.

[Vtop]

I ran into Sonny Weems one Saturday night at 3am at a food place in King west. He was with a few people and invited us to hang out at their table. He ended up giving me his BBM handle (remember those lol) and added me on Facebook where we were in touch for a couple of years.

Also ran into Dikembe Mutombo a couple of times at the Keg by the bar and he was always surrounded by 4-5 beautiful women. They’d get wasted and he would only order a cup of tea!

[Reeko]

I've told this story on here before but I always find it amusing so I'll retell it. I was mutual friends of a fairly well known party thrower for NBA players at the clubs here in Toronto (if you know, you know). Anyway, on this particular night it was after a game against the Nets, back when Vince used to play for them. So a bunch of players including Vince were there and a guy from the group I'm with decided it would be a good idea to try to talk to Vince (not sure if he wanted an autograph or a picture). So when he does this, none other than the infamous Keyon Dooling steps in and puts a hand in the guys chest and tells him to back up and fk off.

Another story, when I was about 12 I went to the Four Seasons downtown with my parents to listen to some bar jazz and as we were leaving there was a black SUV with 4 guys in it. As it so happens two of the four individuals inside of the SUV just so happened to be Shaq and Spike Lee. My parents implored me to get Shaq's autograph and, against my better judgment, I capitulated and asked a female security guard if I could ask Shaq for his autograph, her response was swift "No".

I also saw Stephen Graham in the ACC one time when I was selling 50/50 tickets and took a picture with him and his friend who was about 7 feet tall but definitely not in the NBA (at least to my knowledge).

Also, (not an NBA player but whatever), I saw Adnan Virk when I was selling 50/50 tickets. I yelled "Adnan, Adnan!" and he attempted to ignore me but I was on his heels and after my third "Adnan!" he turned around with the quickness, stuck out his hand for me to shake and said "Hi, Adnan Virk, nice to meet you." and went on his way.

[Jcity08]

I saw OG when he first got drafted at an Etobicoke Walmart in Queensway & North Queen.

I knew it was OG as he was the tallest person in the entire Walmart and their were like a few official looking people with him.

I saw Lucas Nogueira once at Pearson Airport at arrivals.

Not exactly exciting stories but those are the ones I got.

[Bruin]

Used to live in the Bay Area. Steph lived near my neighborhood so I bumped into him couple times at Noah’s bagels and almost got into a car accident with him back when he used to have his black Porsche Lol. Thankfully didn’t end up getting to the point where I’d have to be on the news for crashing into Steph Curry in the highway Lmao

Haven’t met a raptor yet though unfortunately

[metafisical]

Not me, but a friend of mine was in a Vegas casino after the Spurs won the championship in 2003. Some of the Spurs players was there, including former Raptor Mengke Bateer. Bateer went into the bathroom. My friend is Chinese, so he wanted Bateer's autograph. My friend waited outside the washroom for a long time. He goes into the washroom and Bateer was taking a dump. My friend just left. He said it smelled.

[Tor_Raps]

Ran into Siakam and Bebe at a club when they were rookies. Seemed like very nice guys and were very approachable.

Also ran into Mike James when he was our Jordan for that one season at Footlocker in the Eaton Centre. He told me to look one way and then walked the other way. Will never get over that heartbreak lol.

[720]

My friend saw Jamal Murray (when he was basically a kid), Tristan Thompson, Corey Joseph and a couple of other team Canada guys practicing in the Malton community center gym. Idk what they were doing in Malton but still jealous of my buddy.

[murphyslamz]

I ran into Derozan, Ed Davis, and Solomon Alabi at Yorkdale mall a few days before christmass 2011.

I was like 15 and so starstruck. People were staring at them, but only really chatting up Demar a little bit.

I went right up to Alabi and asked him "Is it true that you once fought a Lion?" He chuckled and said something like "haha oh man, the guys just made up this story that I had to fight a lion to prove my manhood and it's got a little out of hand."

I was able to get a picture with Demar, and I told him his 2k rating (which was like a 67) was way to low!! and he said something like "dont worry about that man, thats just a video game"

Ed Davis just looked annoyed with me lol

[AceKobe]

After a late night of partying with friends we got hungry and went to New Ho-King (Chinese restaurant on Spadina) around 3:30-4am. This place was packed and we got seated close to the front. A little bit after Bogdan Bogdanovic (rookie year I believe) and Wiley Cauley Stein walked in with a group of around 3 to 4 other people. They all seemed to know each other except maybe Bogdan. He seemed really quiet, was looking around a ton and was just eating his food while everyone in the group was mingling and really loud. The place was quiet loud, so it was normal. I was a couple of meters from their table so was trying to listen in on what they were saying. Brogdan looked over a couple times and I gave him a head nod. He smiled back and gave the impression like he didn’t really think I knew who he was. Wiley Cauley Stein was sitting with his back to me so I didn’t really have an opportunity to make eye or nod. I wanted to say hi but it was really late, they were probably drunk, eating and I didn’t want to bring attention to them. Except Brogdan he looked sober.

[AceKobe]

After a late night of partying with friends we got hungry and went to New Ho-King (Chinese restaurant on Spadina) around 3:30-4am. This place was packed and we got seated close to the front.

A little bit after Bogdan Bogdanovic (rookie year I believe) and Wiley Cauley Stein walked in with a group of around 3 to 4 other people. They all seemed to know each other except maybe Bogdan. He was quiet, looking around a ton and was just eating his food while everyone in the group was mingling and really loud. The place was quiet loud, so it was normal. I was a couple of meters from their table so was trying to listen in on what they were saying. Brogdan looked over a couple times and I gave him a head nod. He smiled back and gave the impression like he didn’t really think I knew who he was.

Wiley Cauley Stein was sitting with his back to me so I didn’t really have an opportunity to make eye or nod. I wanted to say hi but it was really late, they were probably drunk, eating and I didn’t want to bring attention to them. Except Brogdan he looked sober.

[maddskizzle]

A friend of mine worked in Yorkville and told me the Rockets were there. I was going to the game and brought a Yao and T-Mac jersey to try and get them signed. Long story short, while I was waiting a Rockets employee came out and asked if I would give him my Yao jersey in exchange for getting the T-Mac jersey signed. He said both players won't have time to be signing anything when they come out because they're actually boarding to go to the game.

I agreed and he took both my jerseys into the Four Seasons and after 20 minutes came out with the T-Mac jersey signed and told me they wanted the Yao jersey because Bon Jovi was inside the hotel and wanted an autograph.

About 5 minutes later Yao and T-Mac came out and both pretty much ignored everything because a security guard was clearing a path for them. So technically I had no exchange with either player but it still made for a cool random story.

[prelude00]

Met OG, Nick Nurse, Masai (in passing), Gasol right after he got traded here.

Gasol is super chill. Wonderful human being. He's freaking huge too. He told me that he thought it was a lock that he was going to Charlotte. I joked and said I bet you had a sigh of relief when that fell through and you ended up here. He kinda just chuckled like "oh yeah you don't even know" lol


OG I met right after the Raps let Casey go. I asked him about it, he wasn't too happy about it but understood it was a part of the business. I bet he doesn't care anymore though lol. He was super chill too.

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