Have to vent: bad bad move

[bwforever]

It's slow in the hockey world these days, but I had to jump on and vent about some other alarming Toronto news.

vent

Announced this morning that Masai Ujiri has dealt MR. Toronto Raptor to the spurs for  Kawhi Leonard . 
Some things to understand for those non Toronto leafs fans out there. Basketball is not embedded in Toronto culture like hockey. The raptors floundered around unable to garner a lot of interest, unable to attract UFA's, unable to create a culture. We had Vincanity for awhile until carter left as a UFA. CB4, same thing. 

Then something changed. 
MLSE took them over and really changed the culture.  Drake was brought in as a spokesmen for the team, Dwayne Casey changed the culture int he locker room. 
And they draft Demar Derozen who not only became a super star but signed here long term and became self proclaimed "Mr. Toronto" . 

Somethings are better than they look on paper. In one stroke of a Pen Ujiri has undone all that  MLSE has accomplished in the last decade. Leanord may be a better player but he will never be Mr Toronto, and when he leaves to become a laker next summer, no one will want to sign here again, and the raps brass will be left standing there with their proverbial d!&#s hanging out wondering how everything went so wrong so quickly. 


/vent

i'm not the only one apparently as the toronto papers and social media have exploded in outrage. 

[capncrunch44]

I'm not a basketball fan but I do pay attention with a passing interest during sports highlight packages and I will occasionally watch a 4th quarter of a Raptors game.

I liked DeRozan, the player and the person he was presenting himself to be.

To trade him would be akin to the Leafs trading Wendel Clark for Mats Sundin (would you agree with that BW?)

Certainly not liking that Leonard is/was saying he wouldn't show up to Toronto.

[bwforever]

Clark has always been my favourite leaf so I wasn’t a big fan of that either.
But no, Clark was past his prime and a 3rd liner when traded. i would equate this more to something like The leafs trading John Tavares for Jonathon toews this year.

Good luck ever getting anyone to sign with you again.

[stugats1]

I don't know a single thing about basketball. I never watch or even pay attention to it.. have never heard of any of the players involved... but saw some anger all over Twitter

[Leafs_Pam]

I'm not a basketball fan, but I do understand the frustration of bad trades.

Question. Doesn't MLSE control the Raptors any longer?

[bwforever]

They do and Ujiri has been the president of the raptors for almost as long as Shanahan has been on the leafs side. 
He has done a great job of building respectability in the franchise...up until now. 
Maybe he felt one-upped by the leafs and wanted to do something just as big?

[Leafs_Pam]

Well if that was the case, or even if it wasn't the case, it sounds like he made a big mistake.