Report: Raptors in near deal to extend general manager Masai Ujiri

Masai Ujiri has overseen the building of the best teams in Toronto Raptors history — last season they won a franchise record 56 games and reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time. Also, the core of that team is locked up for years to come. All that in the season the organization hosted its first ever All-Star Game. Things have never been better for the Raptors.

So extending the GM that put it all together makes sense, something that may happen soon according to Marc Stein and Brian Windhorst of ESPN.

Sources said the Raptors and Ujiri are nearing agreement on a lucrative new deal that will keep the 46-year-old in Canada for the foreseeable future, even though he still has nearly two years left on the original five-year, $15 million pact he signed with Toronto in May 2013.

There had been rumors that the Knicks and other teams may try to poach Ujiri, this extension makes that far less likely.

Smart move by Toronto. Remeber Ujiri came to the Raptors and turned them around, amazingly getting something more than a rack of shootaround basketballs back for Andrea Bargnani (thanks for the first round pick, Knicks), plus engineering the Rudy Gay trade. Ujiri deserves a lot of credit for where he’s gotten the Raptors (although how they might grow to challenge Cleveland is hard to see) and he deserves the new contract.