Ujiri Takes Shot at Fellow Toronto GM

Or at least that’s how I see it. It can’t be a coincidence that after a few years of Ross Atkins (Blue Jays GM) referring to his players as assets, stressing “control” over them and rotating between sounding like a stressed stockbroker and politician whenever he speaks to the media, that Ujiri comes out and speaks about his players as human beings. Ujiri stated yesterday “I don’t see our team and our players as pieces, honestly and assets…When people mention pieces and assets, to me it doesn’t tally. I see our players as basketball players and human beings”.

It is a breath of fresh air hearing a general manager in 2020 refer to his players like this, especially with the love of analytics that has taken over sports the last decade. Now I do not want to take this time to rip analytics completely, as I agree they must be apart of any successful professional sport teams regime in today’s day and age. However, in the limited sample size which is Toronto sports can we draw any conclusions about leadership, chemistry, and winning?

The Leafs hired wiz kid Kyle Dubas a few years back who was always known for being able to manipulate contracts around the salary cap extremely well. Accompanied by his staff of analytically savvy colleagues, they have built a team full of talented players, but often they are referred to as a team that needs more “grit, heart and toughness”. Three attributes that are a much tougher to quantify analytically. They have yet to make it past the first round of playoffs in his tenure and are currently underperforming, sitting outside a playoff spot at the all-star break. With the trade deadline coming up becoming more and more crucial for them, is it time to look for some more gritty, leader type players that pass the eye test rather than the players that pass the analytics test?

While Dubas and the contingent running the Maple Leafs could come under fire soon, Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins (otherwise known as Shatkins) have been under the gun by fans, essentially ever since they replaced fan favourite Alex Anthopoulos. They have been consistently nailed in interviews coming off as “robotic”, “political” and being able to say a lot without saying anything. This culminating with the infamous sound bite Atkins offered at the trade deadline in 2019 “turning 14 years of control into 42 years of control”. After trading away two former fan favourites with some of the last links to the best Jays teams in 2 decades and then coming out and knowing fans are not going to be happy about it and spinning it that way…its mind boggling as to why they would think that would be a good idea. It is still too early in the rebuild to evaluate whether their political, analytical and conservative approach is going to pay off with a championship contending team, however all we can hope is that the culture and chemistry they are creating with this new group isn’t as bad as what many former Jays alluded too on their way out.

It could be a little unfair to point out Shatkins singly being at fault for this, as Major League Baseball has a problem with a lot of front offices using this kind of lingo. Maybe attendance at games isn’t down because of longer game times, maybe its because most organizations speak like stockbrokers when talking about their team and players? Maybe its because half the league is tanking? Maybe its because we have taken the human element that Ujiri is speaking about out of the sport and it’s become too robotic or transactional? That’s why it was such a refreshing take to hear a championship winning GM refer to their players as human beings. While there is no way he would ever admit that this is a shot at his fellow Toronto GM, I believe Ujiri is aware enough to know what other GMs in his city are saying and what the fan reactions have been. Nevertheless, Shatkins, take notes.