Masai Ujiri knew that something was wrong with the 2022-23 Toronto Raptors in late November when they lost back-to-back games in New Orleans and Brooklyn by a combined score of 27.
“There was something there that did not seem right at all, and from there, it started taking a turn,” the Raptors president and vice chairman said at his end of season press conference on Friday morning.
The Raptors went on to finish the season 41-41 as the No. 9 seed in the Eastern Conference. But it wasn’t until the final game of the season, when the Raptors blew a 19-point lead late in the third quarter of an elimination game to the Chicago Bulls in a lifeless display of effort that saw them turn the ball over multiple times and fail to defend on a string that Ujiri knew that something had to change.