Masai Ujiri is a Nigerian-Canadian professional basketball executive and former player, and is the president of basketball operations of the Toronto Raptors in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
After a modest playing career, Ujiri became a scout in 2002, first for the Orlando Magic and then the Denver Nuggets. In 2008, he joined the backroom staff of the Toronto Raptors. Ujiri returned to the Nuggets in 2010 as general manager and executive vice president of basketball operations, and helped turn the team's fortunes around, returning them to the playoffs. As a result, he was named the NBA Executive of the Year in 2013. The following season, Ujiri returned to the Raptors as general manager. In the summer of 2016, Masai Ujiri relinquished his title as general manager to Jeff Weltman and accepted the position of president of basketball operations. As president, Ujiri worked to usher in a period of sustained success, helping the team win its first NBA championship in 2019.
Ujiri, then a scout for the Nuggets, founded Giants of Africa in 2003 with the goal of discovering basketball talent. The first Giants of Africa camp was held in Nigeria.
Ujiri has served as director of the NBA's Basketball Without Borders Africa program, which promotes basketball throughout the continent. He also conducts two camps, one for the top 50 players of Nigeria, which is sponsored by Nestle Milo, and another for African big men, which Ujiri sponsors himself with help from Nike. Ujiri and Basketball Without Borders are profiled in Hubert Davis's 2016 documentary film Giants of Africa.
Ujiri has taken personal offense to President Donald Trump's alleged comments about immigrants from places like Haiti and his homeland Nigeria, which Trump allegedly referred to as "shitholes". Ujiri opined that President Trump's words did not demonstrate inspiring leadership and were unfair to the nations and people groups to which Trump referred.
On November 28, 2018, Ujiri received the first-ever President's Peace Medal presented by the YMCA of Greater Toronto during Peace Week. He received the honor alongside two YMCA Peace Medal honourees, Toronto police constable Dale Swift and mental health activist Loizza Aquino.
In February 2020, Ujiri accompanied Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on an official visit to various African nations, including Ethiopia and Senegal. Ujiri appeared on behalf of sport charity Right To Play at an event in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. During that same trip, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Masai made a surprise visit to thank the Canadian troops in Kuwait.
In December 2019, Masai Ujiri launched a new philanthropic platform called "That's Humanity" that debuted with a personal manifesto and video titled “What does humanity mean to you?”
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