WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO REPORTONBUSINESS | B17
E
very game is important in
Canada’s quest for an Olym-
pic women’s basketball
medal in Tokyo.
That’s why Canadian star and
globetrotter Kia Nurse was non-
chalant about flying 26 hours to
Edmonton for her team’s second
round of Olympic qualifying this
week. Or about dropping every-
thing once again for the third and
final qualifying round in Febru-
ary (location TBD).
“You get on an airplane. That’s
what they’re made for,” Nurse
laughed.
“Going to the Olympics, every
single game that we play, no mat-
ter who we’re playing against and
when we’re playing, if we don’t
get through this [qualifying
round], then we don’t get a
chance at the Olympics right?”
the 23-year-old said from Edmon-
ton on Tuesday. “So, it’s coming
in every single day and making
sure and understanding that ev-
ery single game that we play has
its own importance, not only in
our development as a team mov-
ing forward, but to get ourselves
to the Olympics and to the podi-
um.”
Canada tips off the tourna-
ment ranked an all-time high
fourth in the world, and will field
one of its strongest teams in his-
tory this week. The Canadians
play Cuba on Thursday, Puerto
Rico on Friday and the Domin-
ican Republic on Saturday, three
countries they clobbered in the
FIBA AmeriCup in September –
without Nurse and Natalie
Achonwa, who were wrapping up
their WNBA seasons.
Nurse, who was a WNBA all-
star in her second season with
the New York Liberty, took a brief
break to rehabilitate an elbow in-
jury before flying to Canberra,
the team she helped to an Aus-
tralian league title last season.
Nurse was named WNBL player
of the week on Tuesday after
leading the Capitals to a pair of
wins on Thursday and Saturday
in Melbourne. She then flew to
Edmonton by Sydney and Van-
couver.
Bridget Carleton similarly flew
halfway around the world to suit
up for Canada. The 21-year-old
from Chatham, Ont., is playing
for the WNBL’s Townsville Fire
and, like Nurse, had only been
down under for about a month
before jetting back to North
America.
“Jetlag brain is alive and well
here in Edmonton,” Carleton
tweeted on Monday.
A large chunk of WNBA play-
ers spend their winters playing
abroad. Because they’re paid pea-
nuts compared with their NBA
counterparts, it’s a financial ne-
cessity for most.
Carleton had a roller-coasterrookie season in the WNBA. The
former Iowa State Cyclones star
was drafted 21st by Connecticut
then waived in early-July. She
signed as a free agent with the
Minnesota Lynx in late-August.
So the 6-foot-1 guard is appre-
ciating the Aussie experience.
“Australia has been a great
place to develop as a basketball
player, it’s a good spot for me to
be in, I have a good coach who’s
willing to work with me on things
I want to focus on, obviously I’m
growing as a person, first time be-
ing really far away from my fam-
ily and what I’m comfortable
with in North America,” Carleton
said. “So yeah, in terms of just de-
veloping as a player and person
for sure, I think I will be better
because of the overseas experi-
ence for the national team and
hopefully the WNBA.”Arriving in Edmonton in
waveslate last week from posts
around the globe, the Canadian
women will have had three days
to practise before tipping off the
tournament.
“What’s special about this
group is we’re all committed to
this program, coming back from
all over the world to play for Can-
ada ... we all love to be a part of
that,” Carleton said. “We come
from everywhere and then we get
to reunite, it’s always fun to get
on the court with these girls.”
Picked from a Canada Basket-
ball pool of the country’s top
women, the majority have
played together at various tour-
naments for years. So when they
are reunited, they can slip almost
seamlessly back into the Cana-
dian team chemistry they’ve de-
veloped.“We get a good understanding
of playing with each other as we
continue to do that year after
year,” Nurse said. “So when we
come back and get back into the
swing of things, it’s always really
easy and really fun to be back
playing with great players.”
Canada must finish top two to
earn a spot in one of the four
global qualifying tournaments in
February. The top three in each of
those four tournaments earn a
spot in the Tokyo Olympics.
The Canadian women were
ousted in the quarter-finals of
both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
The Canadian men missed a
chance at qualifying for Tokyo at
the World Cup in China in Au-
gust. They’ll play in a last-chance
qualifying tournament in June.THE CANADIAN PRESSNurseknowshowmucheverygamecounts
Basketballstardidn’t
thinktwiceaboutflying
26hourstohelpCanada
duringsecondroundof
Tokyo2020qualifying
LORI EWING
Kia Nurse, right, is keen to be back with Team Canada for Olympic qualifying: ‘When we come back and get back into the swing of things,’ she says,
‘it’s always really easy and really fun to be back playing with great players.’FRANKGUNN/THECANADIANPRESSThis year, the Knicks are horren-
dous again. They have nothing
good to tell their customers. So
what do they tell them?Masai
Ujiri.
The usual practice when these
rumours kick up is to text Ujiri
and get his pro forma denial.
“You going to the Knicks?”
“I’m going to [the Raptors’
farm team] 905,” Ujiri replied on
Monday night.
You could practically hear
him sighing through the phone.
Ujiri is going to the New York
Knicks like I am going to the
Pyongyang Gazette. Because
there are some people no one
wants to work for, regardless of
how good the pay is.
There is a world in which this
would be flattering and fun. That
the guy running your team is
considered so brilliant that just
saying his name aloud conjures
up visions of a winner.
Except that these phoney flir-
tations can have irritating conse-
quences.
The last big rumour of this
sort landed at almost the very
minute the Raptors won the NBA
championship back in June. The
speculative deal was unique –
the Washington Wizards were
apparently prepared to give Ujiri
huge money, full control and an
ownership stake in the team.
That last bit is the one that
caused problems.
Though the report was refuted
almost immediately, it had al-
ready caught hold of the NBA’s
imagination. Ujiri was so good,
Washington owner Ted Leonsis
was prepared to make him a
partner. No amount of saying it
wasn’t so would stop people
from talking about it.
It caused problems with Ka-
whi Leonard’s camp just as Ujiri
was about to begin negotiating
with them. Was Ujiri coming or
going? Was he getting a piece of
the Wizards? Was that a thing
now?
It caused problems with the
NBA, which was alarmed to hear
its franchises might be carved up
like Christmas hams in order to
lure talent. A move in that direc-
tion would render the salary cap
meaningless, and encourage the
worst instincts of very rich peo-
ple with very poor impulse con-
trol.
Ujiri didn’t want to go toWashington. He didn’t get an of-
fer from Washington. But be-
cause Washington planted a ru-
mour, Ujiri had to deal with the
fallout from it.
There is one way to put a pin
in these stories. Maple Leaf
Sports & Entertainment should
make Ujiri the Raptors president
for life.
It’s not often done in modern
sport, but there have been semi-
nal figures at ambitious clubs
who transcend board interviews
and end-of-season appraisals.
Sir Alex Ferguson had that
sort of job when he managed
Manchester United. The Scottish
manager agreed to a deal where-
by he would always be the high-
est-paid employee of the club. If
a player got a raise above that
amount, Ferguson’s salary auto-
matically increased.
“It was simple. We just agreed
that no player should be paid
more money than me,” Ferguson
wrote in his autobiography. “We
agreed in less time than it takes
to read the previous sentence.”
Ferguson was that extreme
rarity – a non-player more im-
portant than the people who
played. He was a winner. He just
had that magic. He made the
people around him winners, too.
When he retired from United,
the team fell apart. He’d been
holding it together by force of
personality.
I would suggest that in Toron-
to, Ujiri has cast that same sort
of spell. He is the most indis-
pensable Raptor.
Ujiri is nearing the end of his
second contract in Toronto,
signed shortly after his initialburst of success.
In the normal run of things,
this would involve a bit of hag-
gling. There’s no question MLSE
wants to keep him, but there are
targets to set and comparisons to
make before paperwork can be
shuffled.
I would suggest it not make
them.
It is an easy thing for MLSE to
make Ujiri the highest paid exec-
utive in the NBA. The Wizards
were apparently willing to give
him US$10-million a year. That’s
a decent starting point.
Ten million may sound like a
lot to you, and it is. It’s a ridicu-
lous amount of money. But the
Raptors are already paying
US$10-million to Norman Powell.
And that is a lot more ridiculous.
Tell Ujiri that he has the job
for as long as he wants it. No con-
tract years or set amounts. No
paper. Just a handshake on a for-
ever job in which he is perpetu-
ally guaranteed to be the high-
est-paid executive in the NBA.
If New York blows someone’s
doors off with a US$15-million of-
fer, the Toronto boss gets a dollar
more.
Ujiri has proven he’s worth it.
MLSE can afford it. The coaches,
players and fans would be unani-
mously for it. And it puts to bed
this carousel of ‘Desperate Own-
er Invokes Ujiri’s Name’ bulle-
tins.
All it will cost is money. And
money is the one thing every
NBA team has in abundance.
What every team is constantly
searching for is magic. Imagine
securing some of that commod-
ity forever?Kelly:MLSEshouldtellUjirithathehasthejobforaslongashewantsit
FROM B15Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri speaks to the media during a news
conference in Toronto inJune.NATHANDENETTE/THECANADIANPRESSMajor League Baseball has ex-
panded its investigation into the
Houston Astros after The Athlet-
ic website reported the team
stole signs during home games
in 2017 by using a camera posi-
tioned in centre field.
The report Tuesday quoted
pitcher Mike Fiers, who played
for the Astros that season, and
three other unidentified people
with the club. The Astros won
the World Series that year – two
sources told The Athletic that
Houston used the system into
the playoffs while another
source said it ended before the
postseason.
The website said the process
was started by a struggling hitter
and a coach, neither of whom
was identified. The camera at
Minute Maid Park was connect-
ed to a television monitor in the
tunnel between the Astros’
dugout and clubhouse, TheAthletic said, and team employ-
ees or players would communi-
cate expected pitches by bang-
ing a trash can to signal off-
speed pitches.
“I just want the game to be
cleaned up a little bit because
there are guys who are losing
their jobs because they’re going
in there not knowing,” Fiers told
the website.
The Astros said in a statement
the team “has begun an in-vestigation in co-operation with
Major League Baseball” and
declined additional comment.
MLB strengthened its rules
against sign stealing before the
2019 season.
“After we review this new
information we will determine
any necessary next steps,” MLB
said in a statement.
MLB already is investigating
the Astros. Assistant general
manager Brandon Taubman wasfired for directing inappropriate
comments at female reporters
during a clubhouse celebration
after the team beat the New
York Yankees to win the AL
pennant on Oct. 19. The team
issued and then retracted a
statement accusing a Sports
Illustrated reporter of trying to
“fabricate a story.”
Taubman was fired by the
Astros on Oct. 24.
THEASSOCIATEDPRESSMLBINVESTIGATINGCLAIMTHAT2017ASTROSILLEGALLYSTOLESIGNSDURINGHOMEGAMES
RaptorsforwardOGAnunoby
hasbeendiagnosedwitha
contusiontohisrighteyeand
willnotplayinToronto’sgame
atPortlandonWednesday.The
RaptorssaidonTwitterthat
Anunobysawaspecialisttoday
inLosAngeles,whomadethe
diagnosis.
Anunobywasinjuredtwo
minutesintoToronto’slossto
theClippersonMondaywhen
hewasaccidentallypokedinthe
eyebyClippersstarKawhi
Leonard.THECANADIANPRESSANUNOBY TO MISS
GAME IN PORTLAND