Toronto Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri fielded questions from the media on Tuesday.
Ujiri opened with a short preamble about the way things unravelled in the playoffs. He didn’t run away from the catastrophe and did not mince words about the embarrassment of getting swept in the first round.
Masai: "It's not acceptable…we owe our fans better."
— Raptors Republic (@raptorsrepublic) April 28, 2015
Masai: "It's been a very disappointing ending for us and we take full responsibility for it. It's not acceptable."
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) April 28, 2015
"We feel we're in a good place as an organization. But the ending … was tough for us."
— (((Eric Koreen))) (@ekoreen) April 28, 2015
Ujiri then took questions, the first of which regarding head coach Dwane Casey’s future. He was mum about his coach’s status, neither committing to, nor ruling out a return next season. Read into that how you will.
“I met with Casey and we kind of started the process of kind of talking about some of the things that we’ve done well and some of the things that we didn’t do well,” Ujiri said (via the Toronto Star). “I think that responsibility comes from me on the top as leader, it comes from coaching and it comes from the players. Everybody is going to be held accountable, everybody is going to be evaluated.”
Masai blames defensive slippage more on injuries than on Casey. “He was forced to play maybe a certain way to survive (injuries)."
— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) April 28, 2015
That led to some questioning about Lowry. Ujiri said he remains fully confident in Lowry and cites injuries and workload as reasons for his decline.
On Kyle Lowry's decline: "When DeMar got hurt, Kyle spent so much energy…he ran out of gas."
— Raptors Republic (@raptorsrepublic) April 28, 2015
"He's a competitor. We just have to find out the right recipe for his body, and figure out maybe what pace he plays at."
— (((Eric Koreen))) (@ekoreen) April 28, 2015
Then came the questions about the offseason. It’s pretty clear based on Ujiri’s words that there is to be no grand-scale tear down this summer.
"It's very important that our franchise and our team becomes relevant. We feel like we're getting there, that we can attract some players."
— (((Eric Koreen))) (@ekoreen) April 28, 2015
“There’s no knee-jerk reaction here. We’re going to be patient. Where we need to make moves, we’ll figure out how we should get better."
— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) April 28, 2015
There was also some more bullshit on Paul Pierce, but who cares at this point? The man destroyed the Raptors. That’s all that needed to be said.
Moving on, Ujiri said he was happy to stand pat at the trade deadline because it gave him an opportunity to assess his team — as presently constructed — in the playoffs. The answers, then, should be pretty telling.
There was also talk about Jonas Valanciunas and Terrence Ross. He admitted that both players need more time and thinks both players improved. Ujiri stressed that they both have tangible skills (ie: Ross’s shooting). Let’s just file this under trade stock fodder.
"Not every team is going to win playing smaller and faster. There are still a lot of big guys that are successful."
— (((Eric Koreen))) (@ekoreen) April 28, 2015
Ujiri wrapped up with talk of the D-League, which ended the presser on a high note. For more on that, read here.
