Raptors’ Bobby Webster conveying calm approach as he steps into lead role

No pronouncements.

No predictions for what the season might bring, or if or when a championship will be coming to Toronto again.

The tabletop was not pounded. There was no need to adjust the volume.

For the first time since 2013, the Toronto Raptors are starting their season without Masai Ujiri front, centre and very much in charge. The franchise’s charismatic front man was ushered off stage with a year left on his contract the morning after the NBA draft in late June, a somewhat predictable outcome given a change in ownership and five years of middling on-court performance.

Bobby Webster, Ujiri’s right-hand man for the past decade, wasn’t necessarily the first choice to fill the former president’s shoes. But after MLSE president Keith Pelley’s search for a new president came up empty, the decision was made to keep Webster on as general manager, giving him ultimate responsibility for basketball decisions — if not the new title to go with it.

On Friday, Webster made his first appearance in his new role, and it was as might be expected. The 40-year-old Hawaiian has always come across as amiably calm, cool and composed, and he didn’t decide to try on a new or different persona for his first day (publicly) at the office.

You never know, there might be a Webster version of “F-Brooklyn” — Ujiri’s famous rallying cry delivered to fans outside Scotiabank Arena prior to the Raptors’ playoff series against the Brooklyn Nets in 2014 — at some point in his future, but for now?

Let’s keep things chill.

Just consider how he assessed the roster the Raptors will be taking into training camp on Tuesday in Calgary.

His professional opinion, based on his 20 years working in the NBA? “We’ll see.”

It might not be the kind of take that will send folks rushing to buy season tickets, or crank up the hype machine, but there were no lies told.

Instead, Webster said what any Raptors fan with some institutional knowledge to draw on would probably go with in a similar position.

“Win the day, one per cent better, no finish line. I think you have to build a team that way,” said Webster, quoting Raptors third-year head coach Darko Rajakovic. “If you have a specific goal in mind, a specific [number of] wins … I just don’t know if that’s the best way to build, especially a young group.

“These guys, when they lock in, that day-to-day improvement is what ends up resulting in being in the playoffs or being in the Play-In (Tournament). We won 30 games last year. So I don’t think there’s any sort of illusions of expectations of this number of wins or this playoff seed. We’ll see.”

Not that Webster was being falsely modest or anything. He believes in the team assembled, given that he helped assemble it, acknowledging that he’s been integral to the decision-making process that the Raptors have followed to get to this point — a 30-win team that had the NBA‘s 14th-ranked payroll last season and enters this season flirting with the luxury tax threshold.

In particular, Webster cited the acquisition of hyper-talented, often-injured former all-star Brandon Ingram at the trade deadline last February and the drafting of rookie Collin Murray-Boyles with the No. 9 pick in June as moves he had fingerprints on. Since Ujiri was let go, the Raptors also signed centre Jakob Poeltl to a three-year, $84 million contract extension (albeit with only $61.7 million guaranteed), a deal is considered a tad rich in some corners.

Still, for the moment, Webster looks at the roster and likes what he sees. He’s optimistic, if cautiously so.

“You’ll see in training camp. You’ll see as the pre-season unfolds. We feel like the summer has been incredible for these guys. Brandon (Ingram) is healthy. We have a starting group that we really haven’t ever seen play together, and Darko is in Year 3, so I think we have a lot of things in our favour, a lot of things that suggest we’ll be competitive,” Webster said.

“But we haven’t put that full season together yet. And I think that’s the challenge for this group, from the first game at Atlanta (on opening night, Oct. 22), can they be competitive? Can they turn back (on defence), can they fly back around, can they play Friday night (and then) play Saturday night? Can you do that on a consistent basis? And then we can have the conversation of where do we think this team will be, or where we think this team can be at the end of the season.”

The biggest reason for optimism — and perhaps risk — is the addition of Ingram.

The 28-year-old gives the Raptors a significant talent injection, but he comes with a long history of missing a lot of games. He’s only played more than 64 games in a season once in his career, and that was as a rookie.

It was interesting that Webster took ownership of the decision to trade for him and then signing him to a three-year contract extension worth $120 million, coming off a season in which he played just 18 games due to a severe ankle sprain.

Even Ingram’s agent, Rich Paul, allowed that getting that much money or term in free agency was somewhere between slim and none.

“I felt like had he got to the open market there was not much opportunity there,” Paul said on Sirius XM Radio over the summer.  “So he’s making $40 million per year over the next three years. That probably wouldn’t have been there for him had we got to quote-unquote free agency.”

But it’s not the first time Webster has taken a chance on a player with spotty injury history. He was integral to the Raptors’ decision to trade franchise icon DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard in the summer of 2018, a move that led directly to the Raptors’ 2019 title.

Winning a championship wasn’t the goal of the Ingram trade, but adding talent the Raptors otherwise wouldn’t have had access to certainly was. And Webster believes it’s a move that will pay dividends, noting that there are no plans to put Ingram on any kind of load management plan that helped Leonard get through the 2018-19 season in good health.

The hope is that Ingram will be ready to hoop, and that he’ll deliver some version of the 23 points, five rebounds and five assists he’s averaged for the past six seasons.

“The shot creation (need) obviously was just clear. He’s one of the few guys who can go get his own shots but also can go get a pretty efficient shot on his own,” Webster said. “I think that’s something that we’ve lacked a bit in prior years. I think he’s sort of like when they say, ‘a comic’s comic,’ he’s like a hooper’s hooper.

“I think people that watch him and people that have seen film on him (recognize he has a) high, high level of skill. Three-level scorer, not all that interested in what’s going on off the court. Not all that interested in what people say about him. … He just loves playing basketball. I think it’s fun to watch him. It’s fun to watch him warm up. It’s fun to watch him play.”

And if, in the end, he doesn’t like what he sees, or if Ingram can’t stay healthy, or if the pieces don’t fit, changes will be made.

“We have continuity, so you don’t want to get away from that,” said Webster. “But you also don’t sort of want to be afraid to make change. I think that’s where we are. You guys know me, it’s not my natural personality, I’m not going to come out here and make sweeping statements and pound my fist on the table. So it’s really still an assessment (going on).

“I think the tough part is we didn’t get to see this team play. I think if we get to see this team play, then hopefully I and our group will more quickly be able to make those decisions. But it’s really difficult before you see Brandon with this group, before you see Collin play, or before you see Darko have a team like this to coach to say, ‘OK, we’re going to make a ton of changes.’

“But I do think — hopefully you’ll see it — as I evaluate the team, and our group evaluates the team, we won’t be afraid to make change. And I think you’ve seen that the 12 years I’ve been here before. We’re gonna not think the same way as the rest of the NBA. We’re gonna not follow the leader in that sense.”

The difference now is Webster doesn’t have the option of following the leader, or enjoying the cover his famously charismatic boss provided for so long.

Whatever happens with the Raptors when training camp opens and beyond will be on him.

GRANGE FOR THREE

Minutes for Murray-Boyles? Webster tipped his hat to the Raptors rookie, while keeping the hype in check: “I think the one area he can (make an impact) is on the defensive end. He’s incredibly disruptive defensively, and we’ve seen that here in September. You saw it in college, you saw it in summer league. So I think that probably would be the incentive for the coaches to put him in the game. But he’s got a long ways to go. I think he’s still got a 20-year-old body, he hasn’t even been on a road trip yet in the NBA, but I think, yeah, you’ll see on the defensive end is where he’ll really make his impact, and I think where he could play right away.”

Luxury tax? Webster not worried: “I just, I don’t even know how big of a story that one is,” he said, in reference to the Raptors who are currently roughly $3 million over the threshold. “You know, the likelihood that this team is the exact same team by the end of the year is probably zero, and then put on top of that with sort of one move you can get under the tax. I don’t see that as the urgent piece.”

Papa Scottie: “I think he’s growing up. Obviously he had a baby (last September), so everybody grows up when you have a kid. I think the baselines for Scottie — I just met with him yesterday — are his defence, his energy, his rebounding, keeping the team together. The starting unit will be interesting to see how they mesh. The scoring I think comes easily for him when he gets early seals, when he attacks the rim, when he gets to the free throw line …  I think that’s a really high, high floor for Scottie.”

More from Sportsnet

Five things that need to go right for Raptors to succeed in 2025-26

Five reasons to feel optimistic about the Raptors’ 2025-26 season