The Toronto Raptors icons that have more in common than what we think

President Masai Ujiri and new Toronto Raptors scout Ben Uzoh have more in common than just Nigerian ancestry.

 

Ben Uzoh, a Nigerian basketball player and former Toronto Raptors standout, has been brought in as a scout by the NBA franchise headquartered in Canada. He will work alongside fellow countryman and Raptors president Masai Ujiri, with whom he has a longstanding relationship.

Returning to the Raptors, where he recorded his greatest NBA performance in a triple double against the Nets in 2012, Uzoh spent the previous campaign gaining experience under the NBA’s Future Basketball Operations Stars program. However, this is Uzoh’s first season as an official scout.

He is working with Ujiri, one of the most seasoned mentors in the game. While Ujiri was born in Bournemouth, England, but raised in Zaria, Nigeria, Uzoh was born in Houston, Texas, to a Nigerian family.

The two have a common past. After Uzoh’s time with the Raptors ended in 2012, Ujiri, who had been the general manager of the Denver Nuggets throughout his NBA tenure, invited him to a training camp. Not that he was hoping for any preferential treatment, but Uzoh did not make the final roster.

Although he doesn’t have a personal contact with Ujiri—who also participates in the Basketball Africa League—he has always had a great deal of admiration for the Nigerian-born NBA Executive of the Year and his accomplishments as a leader.

According to Uzoh, “Me and Masai – We’re not that close, in my opinion; rather, it’s more impressive from a distance. His contributions to Nigeria have been significant, and as a Nigerian, his work for Africa is much more significant. It is self-explanatory.

“He’s a really honest guy. It’s clear that he puts in a lot of effort to get to where he is. Success such as winning a championship and the like speaks for itself, but in reality, my journey and his path are totally different.

“I entered the league at my own initiative, using my own initiative and accomplishments from the University of Tulsa. He was already in the league working as an assistant general manager for the Raptors and progressing to become general manager of the Nuggets before becoming president and vice-chairman.”

“In actuality, our trajectories were pretty naturally divergent. It just so happened to align. That was the first time we met, back in my freshman year. When he was the Nuggets general manager, there were rumors that I was traded to his team. They eventually signed me up for a training camp chance, but it never materialized. At that point, I felt like I was getting closer to him and developing a more intimate relationship.”

Before becoming scouts, Ujiri and Uzoh both competed in non-US leagues; the latter feels this experience has improved his grasp of the game on a global scale.

Uzoh has experience in both recruiting and opposition scouting, so having a broad understanding of basketball is beneficial. He has also had enough of preparation, having played in Russia, Mexico, Nigeria, Belgium, France, South Africa, and Venezuela.

This week marked the first night of the NBA season with a record 125 international players from 40 nations and territories on six continents, so the 35-year-old’s experience as a scout is more valuable than ever.

When asked how his global playing experience helped him prepare for this post, Uzoh responded, “I was a student and an athlete, so the student never got left behind.”

“[The] capacity to analyze the game, the attention to detail, the depth of comprehension [of] personalities, skill sets, and body kinds, together with how I cared for myself as a special science project during pivotal points in my career.

I can contribute to an accumulation of such information. To put it politely, but some people might not be able to apply what they learned from a playing experience to this particular corporate [environment]—the opposite, if you will.

“I guess I’ve been groomed to do that without even knowing so until recently, so I think for me, I’m looking forward to that.”

The fact that Uzoh was not selected in the draft adds to his belief that his own experience of being passed over as a player has taught him to search for signs in other gifted players that the system has rejected, players who have the potential to prove their detractors wrong.

“A lot of times, when it comes to maybe overlooked [players] going under the radar, it’s an accumulation of things [that may indicate somebody will defy the odds],” Uzoh stated.

 

Sometimes, it can just be that you become bigger and more impressive; you might be a late bloomer in terms of skill development; you might have attended a tiny school; or you might have just moved away from the area where other prospects were more evident at the time.

“If you do your homework, there are some traits and some anecdotes that will come to light.

Then, in terms of attributes, these are the same attributes that you find in some of the top prospects that are out there: size, athleticism, skill set, motor, drive, hunger, mentality, approach, and then intelligence regarding family background [and] other various things that can help you get a better sense of the whole child that you’re attempting to comprehend.

“Those attributes and the manner in which you carry out the process of elimination remain largely unchanged. Simply getting to know the child and their tale is more important.”

Ujiri has been a vital component of the African grassroots basketball scene for the past 20 years through Basketball Without Borders and Giants of Africa, and Uzoh was quite supportive of both systems.

“The grassroots infrastructure that’s being laid down in Africa is a beautiful thing for the game and I love to see it personally, just being hands-on within that fabric and having grown it and done my part in that fabric,” he stated.

“I love everything that’s happening and coming together from the grassroots all the way to the professional leagues in Africa.”