We the North: 25 Years of the Toronto Raptors - Hardcover

Smith, Doug

 
9780735240360: We the North: 25 Years of the Toronto Raptors
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0735240361 ISBN 13: 9780735240360
Verlag: Viking, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Doug Smith always gets the first question in any Raptors press conference--as the dean of our press corps, he's been in the front row for every development over the past 25 years. There's no one better placed to write a history of our team's first quarter century."
--Nick Nurse, head coach, Toronto Raptors

Bringing Jurassic Park to your home, a celebration of Canada's most exciting team.

When the Toronto Raptors first took the court back in 1995, the world was a very different place. Michael Jordan was tearing up the NBA. No one had email. And a lot of people wondered whether basketball could survive in Toronto, the holy city of hockey.

More than two decades later, the Raptors are the heroes not only of the 416, but of the entire country. That is the incredible story of We the North, told by Doug Smith, the Toronto Star reporter who has been covering the team since the press conference announcing Canada's new franchise and the team's beat reporter from that day on.

Comprising twenty-five chapters to mark the team's first twenty-five years, We the North celebrates the biggest moments--from Vince Carter's amazing display at the dunk competition to the play-off runs, the major trades, the Raptors' incredible fans, including Nav Bhatia and Drake, and, of course, the challenges that marked the route to the championship-clinching Game 6 that brought the whole country to a standstill.

We the North: 25 Years of the Toronto Raptors tells the story of Canada's most exciting team, charting their rise from a sporting oddity in a hockey-mad country to the status they hold today as the reigning NBA champions and national heroes.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

DOUG SMITH is a sports reporter for the Toronto Star and has covered the Raptors since their inception in 1995. He is recognized throughout the NBA as the expert on all things Raptors, and spent five years serving as the first and only non-American president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association, a group of more than 200 men and women who regularly cover the league and its teams. His international basketball experience includes major assignments at the1992 FIBA Tournament Of The Americas (which was the debut of the United States Dream Team), the 1992 Barcelona, 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics, as well as men's world championships in Toronto, Indianapolis, Athens and Izmir and Istanbul, Turkey.

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FOREWORD

by Vince Carter
 
It was a head-scratcher on draft night in 1998 when my North Carolina Tar Heel teammate Antawn Jamison was selected fourth overall by the Toronto Raptors. I knew he hadn’t worked out for them, so it didn’t make any sense. Before I had a chance to even figure out what was going on, my name was called and I was walking up to the stage to shake commissioner David Stern’s hand. I had been drafted by the Golden State Warriors.
 
As I was talking about my draft-day photo with Stern on stage, he told me to wait because there was going to be a trade. Antawn was going to the Warriors. I was going to the Raptors. Just like that, I was going from the West Coast to Canada in a matter of five minutes.
 
I had worked out with the Raptors, but outside of the two days I spent there for draft workouts, I knew nothing about Toronto. Immediately after the trade happened, I talked to Tracy McGrady on draft night. Just the year before, T-Mac and I found out we were cousins. Now, we were professional teammates.
 
The lockout hit after the draft and I didn’t arrive in Toronto until January. The first day I landed, I was walking through a blizzard. I was like, What in the world? I’m a Florida kid, now coming to a place where it was unbelievably cold. Coming from Chapel Hill, one of the meccas for college basketball, to where we were second fiddle to the Toronto Maple Leafs, which, no pun intended, were the big stick in the city.
 
We were trying to make our way, to teach the fans the game, and we gave the fans something to be excited about. Oh, by the way, what else do I remember about Toronto? Extra-friendly people. Everyone was just super friendly.
 
At the time, I had no idea what influence we would have on basketball in Canada. I was a young guy, playing with my cousin, and we were just having fun and enjoying the moment. At one point, I’m not going to lie, T-Mac and I had it on lock. We were out there trying to embarrass and dunk on people. I was young. I didn’t understand the impact I was having on the young five- or six-year-old who was attending a Raptors game. I had no clue.
 
Social media wasn’t a thing. You definitely didn’t know how much of an impact you had. Now, you can just look at your feed, your mentions, and you can see the impact. The jerseys. The videos of kids reenacting your dunk. We didn’t get an opportunity to see that.
 
I still remember the day I found out I was traded by the Raptors. It was a weird day. I was in Indiana and woke up from a nap after morning shootaround to a bunch of messages on my phone telling me I had been traded. Then I was sitting with Alvin Williams, Jalen Rose, and Milt Palacio. We said our goodbyes before they went to the arena for the game. I was sitting in my hotel not knowing how to feel. I didn’t know how to handle it.
 
Looking back on it, it was tough. The toughest thing to handle was that people questioned my love for the city of Toronto and the game. It was tough at the time to tell my side or to prove to people. It just had to organically happen over time. I believe that time heals all wounds. Once people gained more knowledge of the situation, it helped smooth things over.
 
I always wanted people to know that the night I was traded, the next day, and the days after that, I didn’t have any ill feelings over the team and the city. I loved the city. It’s unfortunate whoever put that out there. They were so far wrong. I remember Doug Smith wanted to have a feature conversation about all of that at the time, to shed some light on the actual situation, but it just wasn’t the right time. And I understood that.
 
So did Doug. It probably sounds weird to say this because a lot of athletes and media aren’t really one with each other all the time, but Doug was a guy I gravitated to over the years. I got to know him, and through having conversations with him, we developed a trust. Even after I moved on from Toronto, we kept in touch, and through all the ugliness of my departure from the Raptors, we talked. Doug understood me as well as my teammates did.
 
That’s rare in sports. For athletes, trust is always tough, and trusting the media is even more of a sensitive fine line. But over our six years together in Toronto, we became friends. Doug understood my ups and downs, he understood my moods, and we approached each other with respect and in the right way. Maybe I’m biased because I’ve gotten to know him over the years, but I know that the things I say will be the things that come out, and they’re in good hands when I say them to Doug.
 
Flash forward to June 2019. I was in Toronto again for a playoff game for the first time since I played in a Raptors jersey. It was Game 5 of the NBA finals. I was sitting with T-Mac. It was insane. I had chills that night. The Raptors lost, but I remember sitting there after the game and telling T-Mac, “Imagine if they win the championship, how crazy would that be?”
 
I was in Oakland for Game 6. The evening the Raptors clinched their first NBA championship. It was unbelievable. In the second half, I looked at T-Mac and we were like, They are really about to win the championship. The Toronto Raptors. This team we played for so many years ago.
 
It was a proud moment for me to witness it and be in the building for it. To see my good friend Kyle Lowry and people in the Raptors organization who I still know, I was so happy for all of them. To leave the arena, we had to walk through the court after the game. I gave Kyle a big hug and congratulated him. I saw my friend superfan Nav Bhatia, who was on another level on the court.
 
It was awesome to see all the Raptors fans celebrating. I was happy to be there just to witness it, just to say that I was there. It was a special moment.
 
For me, it was a way to bring it all full circle.
 
Vince Carter
 
April 2020
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
It’s hard to think of how many times over the last 25 years something has happened with the Raptors, good or bad, last year or in 1995, when I’ve thought, “Man, that’s one for the book.”
 
Well, here it is.
 
It’s hard for me to imagine how we got to this point, how I’ve become so ingrained with one sports franchise that enough stories have been amassed and enough history has been witnessed that I could come up with these recollections, opinions, and thoughts.
 
Incredible, really.
 
The ride has been tumultuous and enthralling and all-encompassing for a quarter of a century. It’s taken me all over the world, allowed me to see feats of athleticism up close that have at times been breathtaking. It’s allowed me to meet and get to know some incredible men and women, masters of sports and of business, fascinating personalities I got to interact with every single day of my professional life for longer than most.
 
I know Wayne Embry and Masai Ujiri because I cover the Raptors, I count Dwane Casey and Sam Mitchell and Brendan Malone as friends.
 
I watched Vince Carter up close and I saw Kawhi Leonard’s steely determination end with a raucous championship celebration.
 
I sipped wine in Treviso with Maurizio Gherardini and got Madrid restaurant recommendations from Jorge Garbajosa.
 
Thanks to the Raptors and the NBA and basketball, I’ve been to eight Summer Olympics, four World Championships, and more NBA finals than I can remember. Games in Honolulu...

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Verlag
Viking
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0735240361
ISBN 13 
9780735240360
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Zeitfracht Medien GmbH
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