Raptors President Masai Ujiri Has Positioned Himself for Jobs Outside the NBA

[lolwut]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

The problem with western societies nowadays is that the smartest and most competent people in the population don't want to work in politics. You're typically left with bottom of the barrel candidates running the country.

How many kids grow up aspiring to work for the Ministry of Health rather than, say, Google?

That's because kids don't even know that job exists. They know Google from their phone. Me, I would easily take the Health Minister job over Google.

That's certainly part of the problem. By the time people are old enough to be aware of the public sector jobs that are available and the laundry list of all the things that need to be fixed, they've already forged entirely different career paths and will not switch.

I work in the semiconductor industry, but if I could turn back time while still knowing what I know now, maybe I would end up in something like urban planning. However, that's not to say I dislike what I'm doing today. I'm content with where I am and have no desire to restart my career just so I can have a chance of fixing public sector issues.

[lolwut]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

And who voted these policymakers in? The people. When people are idiots, they will elect idiots. Today all you need is charisma. No competence.

That's a bit unfair. There's only a limited number of things that people vote on. For example, Freeland was selected for her current position by Trudeau and the party. The "people" had zero say in that decision. Sure, you can say the people voted Trudeau in, but that becomes a slippery slope.

[PerfectJab]

Outside of sports Masai's influence will dwindle.

No matter what the situation is, we are in good hands with Bobby. I believe people underrate how much he has contributed to the team's success and I believe without Bobby we are not winning the championship.

Masai's stature is a little overrated as things could have easily gone the other way. He has made just as many bad moves as he has made good and you can't deny that a lot of luck was involved.

[ConSarnit]

The best remedy for that is a big fat expansion fee though, that's why NHL owners were more than happy to let Vegas and Seattle join revenue sharing.

Expansion for the NHL makes more sense because their US TV deals are nowhere close in size compared to the NBAs so the expansion fee actually makes a difference for them.

A one time payment of 60 million for a NBA team isn't a lot when they're splitting that TV deal with another couple teams every year.

Yea the NHL TV deal is trash, only about $400 million a year whereas the NBA is $2.7 Billion. Not even close, NHL teams need all the money they can get. The new NBA deal is rumored to be $7 billion, better to share that with 30 teams instead of 32.

I think Cuban also suggested that any expansion teams be subject to limited revenue sharing (for how many years and to what extent he didn’t say). This would make it more lucrative for current owners to allow expansion. He cited the expansion fee for Charlotte ($300m) as a mistake because revenue sharing allowed them to re-coup that money in 10 years, effectively making the expansion fee a “loan” of $10m from each team (and therefor the owners incurred very little benefit).

[ForeverTFC]

Think it's pretty clear that he wants an ownership stake. The Seattle group will definitely bring him into the partnership. MLSE needs to step up. The problem is that the hockey guys may then want a similar deal but Masai is different. They should elevate him to an MLSE officer role and give him some stake. He's earned it.

When was the Seattle team approved?

LOL yeah time for Masai's new contract is soon but what's the timeline on NBA Expansion?

I think it's pretty obvious to everyone that Seattle will get a franchise soon. And they don't need the team ASAP; he'll just get added to the ownership group. He'll be much more a partner as opposed to an employee with that group.

[Raps in 4]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

The problem with western societies nowadays is that the smartest and most competent people in the population don't want to work in politics. You're typically left with bottom of the barrel candidates running the country.

How many kids grow up aspiring to work for the Ministry of Health rather than, say, Google?

Plenty of smart people want to work in politics. But breaking into politics is less about being smart and more about being popular and well connected.

Becoming a business leader usually isn't all that different though. You rarely have the smartest people running a company.

[OAKLEY_2]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

Parliamentary representative democracy was created a long time before there were 10,000 plus occupations. You could probably draw from a list of 10 to 20. You only have to go back two generations and the majority Canadians were farmers. This is why you had mandarins and high ranking civil servants. The business of governing continued no mattered who was in power and the people's reps were guided and aided by these policy and legislative pros. Today because of marketing "positioning", especially of personality, we look at our reps as having inherent flaws because the partisan politics of the day demands the baiting of opponents into media gotcha moments where bought and paid for media acts like the propaganda arms of side A or side B.

A drama teacher should not be scoffed at any more than classical dancer unless we have narrow take on who should represent us. After all most here voted for who was spoon fed to them anyway. Thank you electorate! That is the bigger issue. Who decides for us whom we'll ultimately rubber stamp on a ballot? Is the process of a registered party choosing their leader among their delegates for citizens to vote the very best expression of democratic will? If everyone had a say in the candidate contests then maybe we find a Plumber wants to lead. Lech Walesa was a unionized shipyard Electrician and led the first independent trade union in communism and overthrew that form of imposed government. He became President of Poland and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Name all the professionally trained Harvard lawyers who have become politicians and never had so much as a whiff of those accomplishments Walesa had. They and many like them never impact history. There is no high school and university trajectory for great leaders as great leaders seize their opportunities. Bad ones, deplorably bad one's, are hatched by party backroomers and work in so-called think tanks and other vehicles of influence and for their sacrifices and podium presence get tapped to lead their Dinosaur parties. By rights they should have stuck to fundraising and canvassing but the established parties want to project a false strength but more importantly the image of those doing the electing.

It is not about professional credentials it is about the quality of independent leadership with a laser focused vision on nation building. A sense of history and the inventing the future. Many of our leaders are not visionary they occupy a mantle. So give me your very best Drama Teachers, Poets and Journalists and save us the grief of Lawyers and others who when push comes to shove are technocrats sitting on bags of all our money.

[Inevitable]

It’s been apparent by the way he mailed it in this season that he has one foot out the door. It truly seems inevitable he’s gone.

[Johnny Bball]

Silver has said the NBA expansion isn't happening anytime soon. The owners don't want to split revenue with another couple teams. Their piece of the pie would just get smaller with 32 teams.

The best remedy for that is a big fat expansion fee though, that's why NHL owners were more than happy to let Vegas and Seattle join revenue sharing.

Especially right after two seasons of no ticket revenue unfortunately.

[Johnny Bball]

It’s been apparent by the way he mailed it in this season that he has one foot out the door.

[KrazyP]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

Parliamentary representative democracy was created a long time before there were 10,000 plus occupations. You could probably draw from a list of 10 to 20. You only have to go back two generations and the majority Canadians were farmers. This is why you had mandarins and high ranking civil servants. The business of governing continued no mattered who was in power and the people's reps were guided and aided by these policy and legislative pros. Today because of marketing "positioning", especially of personality, we look at our reps as having inherent flaws because the partisan politics of the day demands the baiting of opponents into media gotcha moments where bought and paid for media acts like the propaganda arms of side A or side B.

A drama teacher should not be scoffed at any more than classical dancer unless we have narrow take on who should represent us. After all most here voted for who was spoon fed to them anyway. Thank you electorate! That is the bigger issue. Who decides for us whom we'll ultimately rubber stamp on a ballot? Is the process of a registered party choosing their leader among their delegates for citizens to vote the very best expression of democratic will? If everyone had a say in the candidate contests then maybe we find a Plumber wants to lead. Lech Walesa was a unionized shipyard Electrician and led the first independent trade union in communism and overthrew that form of imposed government. He became President of Poland and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Name all the professionally trained Harvard lawyers who have become politicians and never had so much as a whiff of those accomplishments Walesa had. They and many like them never impact history. There is no high school and university trajectory for great leaders as great leaders seize their opportunities. Bad ones, deplorably bad one's, are hatched by party backroomers and work in so-called think tanks and other vehicles of influence and for their sacrifices and podium presence get tapped to lead their Dinosaur parties. By rights they should have stuck to fundraising and canvassing but the established parties want to project a false strength but more importantly the image of those doing the electing.

It is not about professional credentials it is about the quality of independent leadership with a laser focused vision on nation building. A sense of history and the inventing the future. Many of our leaders are not visionary they occupy a mantle. So give me your very best Drama Teachers, Poets and Journalists and save us the grief of Lawyers and others who when push comes to shove are technocrats sitting on bags of all our money.

Your post is littered with Liberal propaganda.

The Minister of Finance should have a legitimate background in finance.

The MInister of Health should have a legitimate background in medicine/health.

I work for a tech company. We were looking a Director of Engineering to oversee our engineering team. We chose from a pool of Engineers. Is that not logical?

Would an NBA team hire a President of Basketball Operations with no background in pro sports?

Hiring people based solely on personality, sex, race and branding is how you can get into a constant cycle of incompetence.

Trump and Trudeau were elected for the same reasons.....all about the brands and nothing to do with their actual credentials.

[djsunyc]

Tim Leiweke is gonna get Seattle a franchise easily - that guy was the true vision behind hiring GM Masai, getting the Toronto All-star game and the Biosteel expansion / 905 Raptors team coming in

Unreal

he didnt even think of masai. it was colangelo that told leiweke to interview him.

[KrazyP]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

The problem with western societies nowadays is that the smartest and most competent people in the population don't want to work in politics. You're typically left with bottom of the barrel candidates running the country.

How many kids grow up aspiring to work for the Ministry of Health rather than, say, Google?

Plenty of smart people want to work in politics. But breaking into politics is less about being smart and more about being popular and well connected.

Becoming a business leader usually isn't all that different though. You rarely have the smartest people running a company.

In business and politics, the best results are often when you find a person with a combination of intellect, knowledge, experience and personality. Unfortunately what you say is often true.....leaders are often selected based only on personality which can often lead to major problems.

[SFour]

Masai is 50 years old....I think he goes for one more big contract with the Raptors, maybe 4-5 years, and then after that he can go on his political journey, whether it's in Africa or Canada or both.

Reuniting with Tim Leiweke and becoming head of the Seattle NBA team is also a strong possibility, but once again that seems like something that can happen 4-5 years down the road.

[OakleyDokely]

I hope Seattle gets a team though. The Sonics should be in the NBA.

[Fairview4Life]

It’s been apparent by the way he mailed it in this season that he has one foot out the door. It truly seems inevitable he’s gone.

Well I believe he will be here 4Life.

[radeonboy]

He gone?

[Dennis 37]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

Actually, I am good with those qualifications. One has to have shown an ability to learn, listen to advice, and work with people. We don't want to waste a doctor on Minister of Health. It is the top level civil servants who need to be the experts with related education.

Ujiri has learned on the job, and he has experience working collaboratively with people, so yes he would make a good politician.

[KrazyP]

Personally, I think a guy like Masai Ujiri could potentially do a better job running Ontario or even Canada for that matter than the politicians we currently have in charge.

Our current Prime Minister is a Drama Teacher.
Our current Minister of Finance is a journalist and an expert in Russian Literature.
Our current Health Minister has no background outside of running homeless shelters in Thunder Bay.
Our former Minister of Technology was an Accountant.

It doesnt take much to succeed in modern day politics.

Masai's potential to be a political giant either here or elsewhere is huge.

Actually, I am good with those qualifications. One has to have shown an ability to learn, listen to advice, and work with people. We don't want to waste a doctor on Minister of Health. It is the top level civil servants who need to be the experts with related education.

Ujiri has leaned on the job, and he has experience working collaboratively with people, so yes he would make a good politician.

Learning, listening to advice and working with people are soft skills that many jobs require.

In addition to those skills you actually have to have hard skills and knowledge pertaining to the role you take on.

Would you hire a President of Basketball Operations to run the Raptors franchise with no experience in pro sports?

[WaltFrazier]

When you have this many options to choose from I just don't see how staying in Toronto and dealing with the current situation is all that desirable. It's probably why he put so many eggs in the Giannis basket. Building a potential dynasty would get the juices flowing.

Except he created the situation, he should have the character to want to fix it before leaving