Masai Ujiri is out as vice chairman and president of the Toronto Raptors, sources told ESPN's Shams Charania. The Raptors are expected to conduct a full search for the next president of basketball operations, sources added. His departure comes a day after the conclusion of the NBA draft and just before free agency begins Monday. The Raptors went 30-52 this past season and missed the postseason for the third straight year. Ujiri, who was in the final year of his contract, joined the Raptors as general manager in 2013, winning the NBA's Executive of the Year Award that season, before leading Toronto to the franchise's only NBA title in 2019. He played college basketball at Bismarck State College, a juco, and then Montana State. After a brief professional playing career in Europe, he began his career off the court as a scout in 2002 and landed his first GM job with the Denver Nuggets in 2011. Ujiri grew up in Zaria, Nigeria. His strong ties to Africa and philanthropic endeavors helped him become the director of the NBA's Basketball Without Borders program in 2003, the same year he established a nonprofit called Giants of Africa in his hometown. That organization that has expanded across more than a dozen African countries, holding camps and building basketball infrastructure as a way to identify and develop basketball talent across the continent.
