The title of this post is slightly misleading. Masai Ujiri has been hired twice by the Toronto Raptors. For our purposes, I’ll focus on his second hiring as (ultimately) President.
Has there been an executive in any professional sport with a more intriguing backstory than Masai Ujiri? He was born and raised in Nigeria, then emigrated to the U.S. to play college basketball. After a pro career in Europe, he impressed the brass of the Orlando Magic enough to get hired as an unpaid scout.
Jeff Weltman, then with the Denver Nuggets, was sufficiently taken with Ujiri to introduce him to his boss, Kiki Vandeweghe.