Raptors’ Ujiri fined $35K for saying ‘We don’t give a s— about it’ at pre-Game 1 rally
The NBA announced Sunday that Toronto Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri has been fined $35,000 for “using obscene language in a public setting on April 18.” The Raptors organization has also been fined an additional $25,000 after Ujiri said, “We don’t give a s— about ‘it'” — a reference to recent comments made by Washington Wizards forward Paul Pierce — during a pre-game rally on Saturday.
Pierce made himself Public Enemy No. 1 in Toronto when he told ESPN.com’s Jackie MacMullan in a wide-ranging (and pretty fascinating) interview that he didn’t feel that the Raptors — whom he beat in a winner-take-all Game 7 in Canada in the opening round of last year’s playoffs as a member of the Brooklyn Nets, and whom he now faces as a member of the Wizards in the first round of the 2015 postseason — didn’t “have the ‘It’ [factor] that makes you worried.”
The comments by the veteran scorer and experienced trash-talker seemed to get under the skin of a number of folks with the Raptors. Shooting guard DeMar DeRozan said he “could care less” but also that he “wished” he’d see Pierce in the playoffs.
Ujiri — who earned a $25,000 fine last year after saying “F— Brooklyn” during a rally prior to the start of the Raptors-Nets series — went a bit farther.
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Earlier this week, Ujiri had said that he didn’t “have enough money to respond to [Pierce], “ but noted that if he did, “everybody knows exactly how I would respond to it and how the whole of Toronto would respond to it.”
I’m not sure if he got a raise prior to Saturday’s Game 1, but there he was outside the Air Canada Centre, riling up the Raptors faithful with a bit of saucy language aimed at “The Truth.” NOTE: The video below includes not-suitable-for-work language; listener discretion is advised.
Well, for one thing, Ujiri and company might want to start “giving a s—” about Pierce; after all, he scored 20 points against the Raps on Saturday to help lead Washington to a home-court-advantage-stealing Game 1 overtime victory. For another, though, you’d think Ujiri might’ve learned from last year’s league reaction that the NBA office doesn’t take too kindly to high-ranking team executives loudly swearing about other teams, players or cities in public.
During an interview with Canadian network TSN during Saturday’s Game 1, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver expressed displeasure with Ujiri’s comments.
“It’s not appropriate in the league,” Silver said. “We’ll just leave it at that.”
The Raptors, too, would seem to like to leave it at that, preferring to focus less on trying to get back at Pierce and more on trying to get back in this best-of-seven series. From James Herbert of Eye on Basketball:
“Man, I’ll tell you this,” [Raptors guard Greivis] Vasquez began. “This is the last day I’m going to answer anything about Paul Pierce. Paul Pierce is a Hall of Famer that knows what he’s doing. Give him a lot of credit. He got you guys’ attention, he got everybody’s attention and if we keep talking about Paul Pierce, this is going to be a Paul Pierce series. It’s not going to be the Wizards, it’s just Paul Pierce. But what he’s doing is motivating his team, talking trash, so why would we talk trash? I mean, I don’t know if you’re from Toronto but, like, we don’t have any trash talkers in our locker room.”
No, but evidently, they’ve got one in their front office. And judging by the scoreboard, Ujiri’s substantially lightened wallet and Pierce’s social media presence — after the Game 1 victory, he posted a screencap of a Toronto Sun Photoshop depicting him as the wizened Gandalf from “The Lord of the Rings” on his Instagram account with the simple caption, “Lol” — Masai and company are losing.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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