Raptors president Masai Ujiri has filed a countersuit in connection with an incident at Oracle Arena last year on the night his team won the NBA title, writes Laura Armstrong of The Toronto Star. The 108-page claim, filed Tuesday in an Oakland court, relates to an altercation with security guard Alan Strickland, who tried to stop Ujiri from going onto the court to celebrate with the Raptors.
The suit includes a body-cam video allegedly showing that Ujiri wasn’t the aggressor in the dispute. Ujiri can be seen trying to pull out his team credentials before Strickland grabs him by the jacket and pushes him backward, according to Armstrong.
“After being shoved and cursed at, Mr. Ujiri did not respond aggressively toward Mr. Strickland,” the lawsuit states. “… Rather than trying to communicate with Mr. Ujiri, Mr. Strickland chose to dismiss Mr. Ujiri’s claim that he was the Raptors’ president and ignore the all-access credential Mr. Ujiri was trying to show him. Mr. Strickland then forcefully shoved Mr. Ujiri a second time.”
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- The NBA’s “bubble environment” at the Disney World complex continues to be a success. The league announced today that the latest round of testing produced no positive results among the 341 players tested (Twitter link).
- The league is changing its policy on reporting injuries, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic. Teams have been told they must be specific about reasons why players are sidelined rather than using general terms such as conditioning, reconditioning, soreness and fatigue. “If a player has been diagnosed with a fracture of any type, the team’s public injury report must disclose the injury even if the player is certain to play in the team’s next game,” the memo states.
- If Pau Gasol is going to make a comeback next season, it won’t be with Barcelona, according to Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Team president Josep Maria Bartomeu said his franchise can’t afford Gasol. “He is a person who has helped us a lot, he is an ambassador for Barcelona and represents us in the U.S.,” Bartomeu said. “He is an NBA star, and Barcelona would hardly pay what he asks.” There was speculation of a deal in July, but that later fell through.
- Stanton Kidd, who briefly played for the Jazz this season, has signed with Ormanspor in Turkey, Carchia writes in a separate story. The small forward started the season with Utah, but was waived in November after appearing in four games.
The guard’s bodycam clearly showed Ujiri was reaching for his tittygun.
:D I’m kidding. The sheriff/security guard has to be an idiot for making the claims he did. “wtf” indeed. Does being the title-winning GM mean his credentials might be hidden behind a natty suit? I think so. Cripes man, apologize, don’t double down.
Apologize? Sheriffs don’t apologize. They don’t expect the criminals they catch to apologize or be nice so they won’t ever do anything those criminals wouldn’t do. That’s how they will best catch the criminals, by never being as soft as them. And if some foreigner from some foreign country comes up to a sheriff after shame has been brought down on America’s team, then by god that man is going to be shoved back where he came from by the power vested in sheriffs.
Apologize? No that sheriff probably believes still that he was carrying out the people’s will. Apologies are for politicians and namby pants environmentalists. This sheriff knows only one line of thinking: attack the enemy with whatever you have.
And this is why the world loves the US
NOT
What did I just read?
privilege at its finest it would seem. ‘neo’ is probably short for something else.
What is your beef here?