Raptors mailbag: Masai Ujiri's replacement? Are they a playoff team?
The NBA draft is over, free agency is underway and Summer League tips in less than a week as the page turns to the 2025-26 season.
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Which means it's a good time for a Raptors and NBA mailbag. Wasn't surprised to see a lot of questions about the departure of Masai Ujiri and his possible successor.
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Thanks as always for the queries. Here's Part 1:
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Pierro @Oliaros2: 'Are we, for the foreseeable future, going to be Washington Wizards bad? Or are we going to be in hateful NBA purgatory: too good to get a high lotto pick that pushes the team forward, not good enough to contend for the playoffs.'
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RW: It's amusing to ponder this in the wake of Masai's exit since he was adamant the middle was no place to be in the NBA (an accurate statement). He was always dead-set against the Raptors lurking there. I believe in the near term the team will indeed be too good to get a high lottery pick (assuming the key players stay healthy), but I'm more optimistic about the playoffs. In the West they'd be near the bottom, but the East stinks, so the play-in is my absolute floor for these Raptors. Only Cleveland, Atlanta, Orlando and New York seem definitively better. That leaves four playoff spots for Boston (no Jayson Tatum, Jrue Holiday or Kristaps Porzingis), Indiana (no Tyrese Haliburton or Myles Turner), Detroit (weakened by some defections and no longer benefitting from the element of surprise), Philadelphia (if two of Joel Embiid, Paul George or Jared McCain play 60 games apiece, which is far from guaranteed), Milwaukee, and maybe Miami for Toronto to fight it out with.
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Brooklyn, Charlotte, Washington, Chicago, Miami, weakened Indiana and Detroit seem less talented than these Raptors, but we'll see.
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Sean @Whispering375: 'Who in your opinion would be the front runner on Masai's job? And if they do hire someone outside of Bobby, don't you think that new person would want a new coach and management?'
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RW: Ujiri built a very diverse front office complete with a little bit of everything ranging from a jack of all trades with a specialty in the salary cap in Bobby Webster, lots of people with scouting backgrounds, someone who was in media relations (and scouting) in Dan Tolzman, analytics (Keith Boyarsky), and even a former journalist (Luke Winn), amongst others. One thing they don't have is a former agent in a prominent position. That's been the trendy thing in the NBA for a while now (like with Leon Rose in New York). To that end, Bob Myers would be a great candidate, but can't imagine Rogers would meet his price or he'd want to move his family at this point, but you never know. Ideally they'd find an agent-type to work under Webster and maybe even Tolzman, but not sure how likely that is. As you mentioned, it's tough to hire someone above as they usually do want their own people (and I think Webster and Tolzman are more than deserving of showing what they can do in the top two roles. Both are extremely well-regarded league-wide and it would be a shame if Rogers turfed them solely as further cleaning out of the old Ujiri regime.
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