The old general manager, run out of town on a rail, and the new one, still enjoying his honeymoon period, found themselves on a flight together and so the subject turned to a shared interest.
It was mid-November and Bryan Colangelo, the Toronto Raptors former architect, and Masai Ujiri, who replaced him, were returning from Chicago where nearly every basketball industry observer of note had gathered to watch the college showcase featuring the likes of tank-worthy prospects Andrew Wiggins of Kansas, Jabari Parker of Duke and Julius Randle of Kentucky.
But Ujiri was talking to Colangelo about a Raptors pick who came into the league with far less hype: DeMar DeRozan, who Colangelo took with the ninth choice in the 2009 draft and has since emerged as a potential all-star.
“Bryan was going through the reasons why he felt comfortable giving his [contract] extension,” says Ujiri. “And you can see why now.”
Ujiri and Colangelo remain friendly, even if Ujiri’s rise coincided with Colangelo’s fall, and as the Raptors’ season continues to unfold in surprising ways it’s evident that Ujiri is benefitting from the work of his predecessor more than most would have thought.
DeRozan, 24, is proving to be good value for the four-year, $38-million extension given to him by Colangelo, particularly after being taken in the lower half of the draft lottery. The sturdy shooting guard will learn this Thursday if he’s earned his first all-star nod.
Meanwhile second-year guard Terrence Ross’s stunning 51-point explosion on Saturday proves that Colangelo was able to find a real talent with the No. 8 pick in the 2012 draft.
“I think they were both excellent picks,” Ujiri said. “Bryan and his staff did a good job evaluating them and they are maturing and have a chance to be excellent players.”
And that’s a good thing for many reasons. The Raptors unexpectedly find themselves in a playoff race this season instead of a race to the bottom and potential high-lottery draft booty, but the missed opportunity to take a swing at some of the top talent in 2014 doesn’t feel quite so ominous given the way the team’s young core—assembled by Colangelo—continues to perform.
In the month of January, DeRozan—who is averaging nearly 22 points a game on the season—is averaging 23.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.4 assists as his game continues to diversify. DeRozan has always been a fairly easy player to like if only because he had an air of seriousness about him that is consistent with a competitor committed to incremental improvement.
“He doesn’t put in little bits of work,” admires Ujiri. “He puts in chunks.”
There were some concerns about Ross’s ability to adjust to the demands of NBA life after a shaky rookie season—simple things like eating better, sleeping more regular hours rather than staying up for all-night video game sessions, and improving his work habits—and the organization addressed these with him this past summer.
Ross has taken much of it to heart and has seized the opportunity since being made a starter after the Rudy Gay trade, shooting 43 percent from the three-point line since.
Interestingly, especially in the current Tank Era, each of Colangelo’s picks came after seasons in which the Raptors were better than a non-playoff team needed to be and thus picked lower than they could have.
The Raptors finished the 2008–09 season with a fool’s-gold 9-4 burst that possibly cost them a chance to draft the likes of Stephen Curry, the Golden State Warriors’ all-star taken two spots ahead.
In 2011–12 the Raptors couldn’t quite get bad enough to have a chance to draft either Damian Lillard, who went sixth to Portland, or Harrison Barnes, who went seventh to Golden State, each who would have filled positions of need at the time.
Ross’s play of late eases the sting of passing on Detroit Pistons rebounding machine Andre Drummond as they figured they already had their young big man in Jonas Valanciunas.
And while DeRozan may not be Steph Curry and Ross isn’t Lillard, they’re each proving to be potential cornerstone players for a young and rapidly improving team.
Who would have thought that DeRozan missing Monday night’s Atlantic Division showdown against the Brooklyn Nets with a sprained foot is mitigated by Ross, who helped out with the scoring so spectacularly on Saturday night after DeRozan got hurt against the Los Angeles Clippers?
That sentence didn’t seem possible even a few months ago.
It was DeRozan’s injury that gave Ross his time to shine. As the featured wing player, Ross caught fire and came within a missed free throw of breaking Vince Carter’s Raptors franchise record. He became the first player in NBA history to break the 50-point mark while averaging less than 10 points a game, though Ross’s outburst was building as the Raptors benefit from two gifts that can’t be taught: explosive athleticism and a feathery shooting touch that seems to get him more than his share of soft bounces.
The irony is that two of the emerging achievements of Colangelo’s run with the Raptors have only really begun to show their worth since Ujiri traded Andrea Bargnani and Rudy Gay—signature acquisitions by Colangelo that bookended his seven years in Toronto and in many ways proved to be his undoing.
Of course running an NBA team is like that. Ujiri has yet to make the mistakes that may or may not come back to haunt him, but eventually he will: all general managers do.
But in the meantime sending away Bargnani and Gay helped opened the floor for the likes of Ross and DeRozan to prove their worth and justify the faith Colangelo showed in them, to Ujiri’s benefit.
