On the day he should have been preparing for another playoff run, Masai Ujiri was instead sitting in an empty gym, engaging in the most 2021 of activities: a Zoom call. This one was a virtual press conference, arranged so Ujiri, president of basketball operations for the Raptors, could give an autopsy on a season gone horribly wrong.
The Raptors had finished 27–45, 12th in the Eastern Conference, missing the postseason for the first time in eight years—despite a roster with six players from their 2019 championship run. Just last summer, they’d made a spirited run to Game 7 of the conference semifinals.