Ujiri became the first non-American to be named NBA Executive of the Year when he was at the Denver Nuggets.
Ujiri , with Kyle Lowry, went from a boyhood in Nigeria to making decisions that could bring the NBA title to Toronto.
“Caught a lot of us off guard,” said Raptors’ Cameroonian forward Pascal Siakam. “It was definitely something that was a tough pill to swallow. “It’s surreal but when you put the team together, we all dream of a championship,” Ujiri said. “The change was hard at the time but we knew the kind of player we were getting and if we overcame and we dealt with all the issues that we felt that could come together.
Nurse has stamped his mark on the club as well, but Ujiri stressed that even absent, DeRozan and Casey deserved some of the credit for getting the Raptors into the first final of their 24-season history. “This is what we dream of,” Ujiri said. “It’s overwhelming when I look at all the international players we have on our team, even the people on our staff, it has really brought us together.
Ujiri was born in England to Nigerian students who moved back to their homeland when Masai was two. He played football as a child until discovering basketball as a teen and finding an idol in Nigerian NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon.
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