Yup, we’re still champs.
Hernandez’s lost season may have been break Raptors needed | Toronto Sun
A lost year may not have personally helped the Raptors’ lone selection in the NBA draft on Thursday, but it may have helped him fall to Toronto which was picking 59th.
Your newest Raptor is Dewan Hernandez, formerly Dewan Huell and while he’s out of the Miami program, he hasn’t played there in more than a year.
The NCAA took care of that when it suspended Hernandez for the season after he was linked to one of the agents caught up in the FBI’s college basketball corruption investigation.
Had Hernandez stayed at Miami for his senior season he would have been ineligible for 40% of it.
Instead, after exhausting all appeals. during which time he remained with the program, Hernandez walked away from the University of Miami and spent the remainder of the year in Charlotte working out with his agent.
Hernandez went through the draft process but not having playing 5-on-5 basketball since March of 2018 when the Hurricanes were knocked out of the NCAA tournament by Loyola Chicago, there was obviously some rust.
Raptors assistant GM and director of player personnel Dan Tolzman said that rust may have helped the Raptors land the rangy, 6-foot-10 big with advanced agility.
Raptors GM Bobby Webster described Hernandez this way.
“He’s a really talented kid,” Webster said. “Obviously, he had an unfortunate year last year where he didn’t get to play NCAA ball, but he’s 6-10, he’s agile, he’s skilled, he’s really competitive. He’s a guy we’ve followed probably for a few years now because he was a top recruit coming out of high school, so he’s kind of been a known commodity.”
John Tory and #Raptors superfan Nav Bhatia ask Toronto fans to give Kawhi Leonard space pic.twitter.com/RPSdbjTBPm
— Global News Toronto (@globalnewsto) June 22, 2019
Morgan to Play for the Raptors
Cornell’s all-time leading scorer, Matt Morgan, announced Friday he’ll play summer league ball with Toronto.
The Las Vegas Summer League starts July 5th.
Raptors news: Kawhi Leonard’s NBA Finals Game 1 jersey auctioned for $50K
Kawhi Leonard is the biggest star in the NBA right now, so it’s no wonder why someone paid $50,000 to get a game-worn jersey of the Toronto Raptors star.
The NBA auctioned the Leonard’s NBA Finals Game 1 jersey following the team’s historic title run in the 2019 playoffs. Details of the winner (name, whereabouts, etc.) were not revealed, but it is clear that that person is either a die-hard Leonard or Raptors fan.
However, it’s hard to blame the winning bidder for wanting a piece of history.
Leonard was sensational throughout the course of the 2018-19 season, particularly in the playoffs during which he led the Raptors in pulling off one of the biggest upsets in NBA history against the Golden State Warriors.
Sheriffs admit Raptors exec Masai Ujiri showed ID before Oracle Arena incident
An attorney for a deputy involved in an altercation with Toronto Raptors President Masai Ujiri as he tried to join his team on the court to celebrate their National Basketball Association championship said his client suffered a concussion and is on medical leave. Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Sgt.
The deputy’s claims have been met with backlash in the days since the Raptors’ Game 6 win.
Ben Baller, a celebrity jeweler and entrepreneur, said he heard the officer ask for Ujiri’s credentials, and although the Raptors executive provided some, the officer deemed it wasn’t enough to let him pass because he didn’t have the specific credentials required to get on the court.
While Ujiri is back in Toronto, the authorities are considering their options now.
Contrary to initial reports, the police confirmed that the video under investigation is not a body cam from the deputy but instead footage from Oracle Arena.
The draft is over, and now on the clock: Free agency | Other Sports | telegraphherald.com
Luxury real estate agents in the few York area might be drooling at the thought of the Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks having well over $100 million in cap space to play with this summer. That sort of available cash means both the Nets and Knicks could conceivably lure two max-salary players to their clubs, and both franchises are certain to pursue the big names like Leonard, Durant, Walker and Irving.
“I don’t know what they’re going to be interested in, but when they look at Brooklyn from afar we’ve got to give them some credit because the guys that are free agents, all of them have spent the last year or two surveying the league,” Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks told reporters early Friday. “They know where they want to go and what they want to be a part of.”
Walker could command $221 million from Charlotte, though he has said he will take less. Durant could get the same from Golden State, and he hasn’t said he would take less. Leonard is probably the biggest mystery case that needs solving; the now two-time NBA Finals MVP could end up with the Los Angeles Clippers, he could stay with the NBA champion Toronto Raptors, or look to New York. And as is almost always the case with Leonard, there have been no real hints.
Former Raptors head coach Dwane Casey says it was ‘exciting’ to see team win Finals
Speaking on Friday at the Detroit Pistons’ practice facility Casey told the Associated Press, “It was exciting. It was good to see.”
Many of Casey’s former players helped make up the championship winning roster, something Casey was proud to see them accomplish.
“To see a guy like Kyle Lowry, kid like Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and those guys — Serge Ibaka, guys I coached — win,” Casey said. “It was really thrilling, because I know that was a goal going in with that group, and to see them win it was great.”
Casey spent seven total seasons with the Raptors, finishing with above a .500 record in five of his seasons and playoff appearances in each of his last five seasons as well, including a conference finals appearance in 2016.
In his final season, the team won a franchise-record 59 games.
Casey didn’t stay unemployed for long as the Pistons hired him just one month after the Raptors let him go.
The team reportedly put on a full-court press to nab Casey and signed him to a five-year deal with an annual value just north of $7 million.
In his first season, the Pistons finished with a 41-41 record with three wins over the Raptors, good enough for the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference and a playoff spot.
The team was promptly swept by the No. 1 seed Milwaukee Bucks in four games.
Casey also recognized the importance of the victory for the city of Toronto and its fans.
“For that city to win a championship, it had to be thrilling for them,” Casey said.
RJ Barrett watched the NBA Finals with the Knicks’ president
ntil now, Barrett was a rabid Raptors fan, growing up in a Toronto suburb for part of his childhood.
“I think it’s important people understand how much time we spent with RJ,’’ Mills said at Friday’s press conference introducing Barrett, whom the Knicks selected with the No. 3 pick in Thursday’s draft. “We spent a lot of time when we were in Chicago [at the NBA scouting combine]. We had a chance to meet with his dad. He came and spent 2¹/₂ days. [GM] Scott [Perry] and I took him out to dinner twice.”
One of those dinners was at A-list Italian restaurant Carbone’s in Greenwich Village, where Perry noted Barrett’s affinity for pasta. But one of the key parts of the 2½-day stay was Barrett going to Mills’ home to watch Game 5 of Raptors-Warriors.
“With that particular visit, I wanted him to come in and be part of my family and spend time with me and my wife. It was important to spend quality time together,’’ Mills said. “I wasn’t looking for anything important, but express to him the relationship we’d like to have with the players who play for us.”
Kawhi Leonard has officially signed A sponsorship deal with @CargoJetAirways based out of Hamilton Ontario. This is the same company who gave @Drake his signature Boeing 767 Airplane. #ESPNEID pic.twitter.com/O3HW5JGt6w
— Matthew Eid (@ESPNEID) June 21, 2019
Raptors’ Kyle Lowry’s grandmother died around NBA Finals
Kyle Lowry played the best basketball of his career during Game 6 of the NBA Finals but it may have been with a heavy heart.
On the latest episode of “Inside the Green Room”, Toronto Raptors guard Danny Green revealed that Lowry’s grandmother died around the time of the Finals.
“The crazy thing is – nobody knew this – he kind of did it, he kept it under wraps and nobody knew but I think his grandmother had passed,” Green said of Lowry.
“I meant to send him a text to send him my condolences. Nobody knew about it and he continued to play, and play really well with that probably on his mind, on his back, or whatever. He came out aggressive in the way we needed him to.”
Lowry confirmed to Green after the show was recorded that his grandmother died.
Once the Raptors acquired Gasol in Feb, Ibaka transitioned into becoming a full-time reserve, coming off the bench in 13 of the team’s final 17 games. As the playoffs approached, Ibaka maintained that his role was unimportant as long as he can contribute to winning.
That he did.
Throughout the regular season, Ibaka’s play was often a barometer of the Raptors’ success, it helps that he had one of the best seasons in his 10-year career. Toronto was 22-9 when Ibaka scored 16 or more points and 23-9 when the 29-year-old grabbed nine or more rebounds.
This trend continued in the postseason.
As Ibaka served as the muscle for the Raptors reserves in each of their 24 postseason games, the team was 9-1 when he scored 10 or more points. At a crucial juncture when the second unit was almost unplayable, Ibaka brought consistency and in many ways, sparked the group’s resurgence.
In the Conference Semifinals. Nick Nurse’s adjustment of playing Ibaka alongside Gasol muddled things up for the Sixers offence and helped swing the series back into the Raptors favour. Ibaka was huge when the team needed it most in Game 7 of that series as well; while many just speak of Kawhi’s shot – and understandably so – Ibaka was the second leading scorer with 17 points off the bench in a game where just seven players played the entire night.
Kyle Photoshoot for SI:
Toronto Raptors big man Serge Ibaka enjoying Fashion Week in Paris – TSN.ca
Ibaka, who is coming off an NBA championship win with the Raptors, is a fashion buff who regularly shows off his outfits to his one million followers on Instagram and 881,000 on Twitter.
Earlier this month Vogue gave Ibaka’s fashion sense a massive thumbs-up.
“As one of the most fashion-forward players in the NBA, Ibaka has consistently been ahead of the curve with his style,” the magazine wrote. “Throughout the playoffs, he arrived to games in dapper custom suits or wide brim hats by Nick Fouquet, turning the pre-game into a showcase for the best in menswear. Whether that meant an embroidered Valentino jacket at Eastern Conference semifinals back in May, or Chanel’s take on the sweatshirt later that same week, Ibaka always keeps things interesting.”
The 29-year-old Ibaka is a regular at the Paris fashion show. He joined Kanye West, singer Rita Ora, hip-hop star A$AP Rocky and fellow NBAers Russell Westbrook and Jaylen Brown at last year’s event.
Born in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, Ibaka played professionally in Spain before coming to the NBA in 2009. He became a naturalized citizen of Spain in 2011.
