Every significant personnel decision in the NBA is a gamble, because it’s impossible to predict how well powerful personalities will mesh, how talents on the court will blend, how or if bonds will be formed that strengthen the group or tear it apart.
It was with that in mind that Masai Ujiri made a seismic move last July, a move he thought might work but one that he wasn’t sure would.
Friday night in Oakland, in outtakes from an ESPN interview, Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard proved Ujiri something of a genius for the gamble the Toronto Raptors president took when he brought them together.