Isiah Thomas recalls early Raptors days: People didn't think basketball could work here
With All-Star weekend showcasing Toronto's steady rise as a basketball power player, Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas spoke to theScore after a Hall of Fame gathering Friday. He discussed the city's early NBA days more than 20 years ago, when Thomas was the expansion franchise's part-owner, executive vice president, and general manager.
On getting an expansion team off the ground in Toronto, where there were doubts about long-term viability:
"There were a lot of people who didn't think basketball could ever work internationally, particularly here in Toronto. Vancouver was thought to have more (chance of) success than us because Toronto was seen as hockey country. I remember when we first came in, we didn't have a uniform, we had no colors. We had a piece of paper and a pen, and my job was to sell basketball in this country, and sell basketball to Toronto.
"Back then, when you mentioned basketball to sponsors or TV execs, they really were upset with you because they felt like you were coming in to take something from them. I remember knocking on doors late at night, passing out fliers, talking about the Raptors, just to make sure people understood what we were trying to do and how we were going to build it."
On the Raptors' branding being geared to kids:
"We marketed it to young folks. We looked at Mickey Mouse and we looked at Ronald McDonald, and we wanted to have a mascot that would be everlasting, that we could build around and sell around. Those are the things we had to sell. We had no players (this was before both the 1995 NBA Draft and Expansion Draft)."
On whether he had his own doubts about Toronto, or whether he saw the potential for what's transpiring now in the city:
"You hoped, and all you really did was look at the demographics. I knew what basketball was in America, but we didn't have the framework that America has in terms of the high school association, and then the NCAA, so you have natural feeder systems in terms of coverage and information. We really had to do all that here, in terms of building infrastructure.
There was some nights where you didn't know if you would be able to make it work, but through perseverance, and a little luck, you see where we are today."
On taking pride in contributing to the basketball boom in Canada:
"Oh, absolutely. There's a gentleman who's going to the Hall of Fame named John McLendon, who was one of my first AAU coaches. When I got the job here, I brought him to Toronto and he was on our staff. We started the John B. McLendon Award. And if you go back and you look, the first recipient of the John B. McLendon Award was this kid by the name of Steve Nash, and now he's going to be in the Hall of Fame one day. So the legacy here, in terms of basketball and what has gone on, is pretty spectacular."