Just 11 days after re-assigning President and General Manager Bryan Colangelo to another role, MLSE has found his replacement running the Basketball Operations for the Toronto Raptors.
Adrian Wojnarowski, of Yahoo Sports was the first to break the news that current Denver Nuggets head man Masai Ujiri has agreed to move to Toronto.
Ujiri will be the new General Manager fro the club, though it is unclear at this time if he will also get the title of Team President. In any event, he has been hired away from Denver to take over basketball operations for the club. Ujiri was named NBA Executive of the Year this past season. The Nuggets finished with a 57-25 record this season, good for third in the Western Conference. They lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Golden State Warriors.
Ujiri has a strong connection to the Raptors as he is also a former assistant GM under Colangelo in Toronto from 2008-10. He was hired as Director of Global Scouting for the team in 2007.
It has been reported that the Raptors offered to triple Ujiri’s salary from what he was being paid in Denver. Giving him in excess of $3 million dollars per year. Last weekend the Nuggets gave the Raptors permission to speak to Ujiri about the vacant GM role.
Ujiri will be tasked with finding a way to get the Raptors back into the playoffs, something they have not done since 2008. The biggest issues now on his plate are moving Andrea Bargnani, and figuring out what to do with Bryan Colangelo’s last big acquisition, Rudy Gay, who has one year remaining on his contract. He must also decide about the future of current Raptors head coach Dwayne Casey.
Due to previous trades, the Raptors do not have any selections in the 2013 NBA Draft.
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