SATURDAY,OCTOBER19,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO S11
B
etween touring it around
Toronto during their NBA
championship parade last
June, and shining it up for Tues-
day’s opening-night ring ceremo-
ny, the Raptors have shown the
Larry O’Brien Trophy a good time
all over the world.
From Cameroon to the Congo,
Nigeria to Philadelphia, Rock-
ford, Ill., to the beaches of Ha-
waii, the reigning NBA champs
have been sharing their hard-
earned golden prize with the
people and places that helped
shape them.
After a team wins the NBA
championship, the club gets its
own unique Larry O’Brien Tro-
phy to keep, complete with a
case and a key.
Decked in a black champion-
ship hat and sweatshirt, Kyle
Lowry took the trophy to the
North Philadelphia neighbour-
hood where his mother raised
him. The Raptors all-star point
guard put the trophy in the
hands of kids at two different rec-
reation centres, where he had
launched basketballs as an un-
dersized but feisty kid, and began
to make a name for himself,
eventually drawing crowds to
watch him play.
He welcomed the kids to take
photos. They stood up close to
the famous two-foot trophy of a
basketball on the rim of a net,
made of sterling silver with 24-
karat gold overlay. He gave the
youngsters backpacks and school
supplies.
“That’s home. I go back there
in summers anyway, even with-
out the trophy. It’s special to me,”
Lowry said at practice in Toronto
this week, reminiscing about the
Philly visit. “It was cool and it
meant the world to me, because
where you come from and what
you see growing up means a lot
to who you are. You’ve got to
show the kids there that any-
thing is possible. It was cool that
my mom got to enjoy it and hold
it, too. Everyone in my family did.
When you get to touch that tro-
phy, it’s like your whole world
changes.”
When asked to reflect back on
his day with the trophy, Fred
VanVleet spoke first of the pierc-
ing, excited reaction of some
3,000 people when he walked it
into the UW Health Sports Facto-
ry in his hometown of Rockford,
Ill. It was the annual FVV Fan Fest
- an amped-up, sports-themed
fun-fair event he began throwing
for the city a few years ago – fol-
lowed the next day by his youth
basketball camp.
A police officer flanked VanV-
leet as he waded into the boister-
ous crowd with the hardware.
“It was a really cool moment.
There was a lot of kids in there,
so it was total mayhem,” VanV-
leet said.
“We had police and security so
people wouldn’t be trampled.
But it was definitely like almost
causing a little riot. People were
so excited, trying to come up and
touch the trophy, take photos,
get a hold of it.”
Serge Ibaka drew a crowd in
Brazzaville, Republic of Congo,
when he brought it home. His In-
stagram shows him sharing it
with a large group of kids. It also
shows him sharing a moment for
himself. The NBA star, who now
has his own cooking show, sat by
himself eating a meal with the
trophy at his side, in the same
restaurant where he used to beg
for leftovers as a boy as the third
youngest in a family of 18 kids
whose mother died and whose
father had been imprisoned.
His trophy trip also included a
visit with Congolese President
Denis Sassou Nguesso. Ibaka said
he also took it to a club where we
started to play basketball, and to
visit his grandmother and his un-
cle.
“It was about me showing my
people anything is possible if you
believe and you go get it. In life
sometimes we think it cannot
happen right,” Ibaka said after a
workout at Raptors training
camp in Quebec City.
“I wanted them to be inspired
by that. And, the restaurant, that
part was for me – to remind my-
self where I come from.”
While it was in Africa, Raptors
president Masai Ujiri made sure
it visited stops in his series of Gi-
ants of Africa summer youth bas-
ketball camps across the conti-
nent, and to see friends and fam-ily in his hometown of Zaria, Ni-
geria. Raptors star Pascal Siakam
was on hand at the Giants camp
in Cameroon to share it with the
kids from his home country.
Raptors coach Nick Nurse took
the trophy to America’s Midwest.
His time included a Chicago Cubs
game at Wrigley Field, where he
sangTake Me Out To the Ballgame
while wearing Harry Caray glass-
es and a Cubs jersey, in honour of
his favourite boyhood baseball
team. He and his coaching staff
shared an evening with Cubs
manager Joe Maddon and the
trophy.But Nurse, who hails from
nearby Carroll, Iowa, also took it
to his home state. There was a
celebration in Jefferson, Iowa, at
the Wild Rose Casino, thrown by
the casino owner who was also
an owner of the Iowa Energy, the
NBA D-League team Nurse once
led. Iowa’s Governor declared it
Nick Nurse Day.
The place was packed with his
friends, family and school class-
mates, many of whom gave
speeches. Nurse spoke, too, and
finally connected with those
from back home who had been
texting him throughout the Rap-
tors’ playoff run. They broughtthe party to life with one of Nurs-
e’s favourite local musical acts, a
1980s cover band called the Spaz-
matics.
“Then they had the trophy set
up and I went out to take pictures
with everybody, and that pro-
ceeded to take like three hours –
it flew by. So by the time I finally
came to sit down to watch the
band, I heard them say, ‘Okay, for
our last two songs...’, and I was
like, ‘NOOOOOOO, I missed most
of it!,’ ” Nurse said with a laugh
after a practice in Quebec City.
“But I got a great picture with the
guys from the band and I rode in
an elevator with a few of them
later on. It was [an] awesome
day. I don’t think the Larry’
O’Brien Trophy has travelled
through middle Iowa very often.”
A Raptors staff member flew
the trophy to meet general man-
ager Bobby Webster in Hawaii for
part of his 10-day vacation back
home. Webster popped by his
high school in Honolulu with it
on the first day of their new
school year. He brought it to Kai-
lua District Park, where several
old friends and teammates came
back to the place where they
played hoops growing up. The
trophy went to Webster’s family
dinners and to the beach.
Many of the people who cele-
brated with him there – includ-
ing his high-school coach – had
made the journey from Hawaii to
Oakland to support Webster and
his Raptors when they were tak-
ing on the Warriors in the NBA
Finals.
“I didn’t announce the trophy
to anyone. I didn’t want all those
big expectations, and initially I
kind of wondered, ‘Will anyone
really care to see it?,’ ” Webster
said. “But then as soon as you
take it out of the case, it’s shiny
and gold, and it’s like a magnet
drawing people in.”Norman Powell took the tro-
phy to his high school in San Die-
go. He said it provided moments
of reflection on how he has
grown and matured. The princi-
pal spoke – telling stories of
when she had been Powell’s
math teacher and how hard-
headed he had been as a fresh-
man. Powell also spoke to the
school’s football team. It made
him think back to when he had
quit football because the quarter-
back wasn’t passing to him
enough.
“Back then, I was the kind of
kid who didn’t want to be a
blocker; I just wanted the ball. I
was not about to go spend my
time on a sport where I wasn’t
getting the ball,” Powell recalled
at Raps training camp.
“Taking the trophy home to
Lincoln High was amazing, since
that’s where basketball really
took off for me in my junior and
senior year. The appreciation and
love I got was crazy. I remember
when I was there in my old gym
talking to a guy, and he was like,
‘You could be in the NBA and be
part of it’, and I was like, ‘Nah
man, I want to win a champion-
ship in the NBA.’ So to have that
come circle there was great.”
Although he no longer plays
for the Raps, Finals MVP Kawhi
Leonard also spent some time
with the trophy in his hometown
of San Diego.
Raptors players, coaches and
staff members were all invited to
book time with the hardware.
Many of the players who didn’t
see much time on-court during
the playoffs took advantage of
the opportunity. Malcolm Miller
took it back to his high school in
Montgomery County, Md.; Jodie
Meeks to Norcross, Ga.; Chris
Boucher to Montreal.
OG Anunoby – who under-
went an emergency appendecto-
my on the eve of the playoffs and
missed the entire postseason –
took the trophy to Nashville.
Anunoby, who was born in Lon-
don to Nigerian parents and
raised in Jefferson City, Mo., has
no particular ties to the Tennes-
see capital. He said he just hap-
pened to be working out in Nash-
ville when the trophy was avail-
able and wanted to spend some
time with it.
“I just had it with me. It stayed
in my room. I don’t do much, I’m
very laid back,” said Anunoby,
adding that he did take a few
photos.
“I didn’t really take it out any-
where. I didn’t want to mess it
up. It’s in excellent condition. I
didn’t want to be the one to tar-
nish it.”
On Tuesday, the trophy comes
to Scotiabank Arena as the Rap-
tors tip off their title defence on
opening night against the New
Orleans Pelicans. Eventually, the
shiny prize will find a permanent
home with the team, somewhere
in Toronto. The Raptors will by
then be trying to earn another to
put beside it.RaptorsguardKyleLowryholdstheLarryO'BrienTrophyashewavestofansduringtheteam’sNBAchampionshipparadeinTorontolastJune.Betweenseasons,theTorontoveteran
tookthetwo-foottrophytothePhiladelphianeighbourhoodwherehismotherraisedhim:‘Itwascoolanditmeanttheworldtome,becausewhereyoucomefromandwhatyousee
growingupmeansalottowhoyouare,’hesays.‘You’vegottoshowthekidstherethatanythingispossible.’FRANKGUNN/THECANADIANPRESS
Raptorsrecalltheirchampionshipsummer
Playerspaidhomage,
totheirroots,from
PhillytoCameroon,
beforereturningfor
season’sopeningnight
RACHELBRADYTO/ONTO
The NBA’s sobering October
continued on Friday when the
New Orleans Pelicans confirmed
that their prized rookie, Zion
Williamson, is out indefinitely
because of an injured right
knee.
Williamson is likely to miss
the start of the season, which
begins Tuesday, with what the
Pelicans have termed “sore-
ness” in the 19-year-old’s right
knee. His dominant play in the
preseason had been one of the
league’s few upbeat counters to
a breakdown in its decades-long
business relationship with
China, which has dominated
sports news coverage for the
past two weeks.
The Pelicans open the regular
season on Tuesday in Toronto
as the opponent on ring night
for the Raptors, who will be
celebrating the first champion-ship in franchise history, which
they won in June.
Williamson averaged a heady
23.3 points and 6.5 rebounds in
just 27.3 minutes per game –
while shooting a robust 71.4
per cent from the field – in his
four preseason appearances. But
Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry told
reporters on Friday morning
after the team’s shootaround at
Madison Square Garden that
Williamson is believed to have
suffered the injury on Oct. 13
against the San Antonio Spurs.
Gentry would not specify how
long the team expects William-
son to be out.
The Pelicans left Williamson
behind in New Orleans on
Thursday for further evaluation
and treatment when they
traveled to New York for their
preseason finale on Friday night
against the New York Knicks.ESPN reported on Friday that
Williamson “has avoided a
serious injury to his right knee
but is expected to miss a period
of weeks.”
This will be the second injury
absence of Williamson’s nascent
pro career. He lasted just nine
minutes in his summer league
debut in July in Las Vegas after
banging knees with an oppos-
ing player, resulting in an in-
jured left knee that prompted
the Pelicans to hold him out of
the rest of the summer sched-
ule to be cautious.
Williamson bounced back in
exhibition play with a level of
production and efficiency that
quickly established him as an
overwhelming favorite among
oddsmakers and NBA pundits to
win rookie of the year honors.
NEW YORK TIMES
NEWS SERVICEPELICANSSTARZIONWILLIAMSONSETTOMISSSTARTOFNBASEASONWehadpolice
andsecuritysopeople
wouldn’tbetrampled.But
itwasdefinitelylikealmost
causingalittleriot.People
weresoexcited,trying
tocomeupandtouch
thetrophy,takephotos,
getaholdofit.FREDVANVLEET
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