Toronto Raptors Rumors

Toronto Raptors assistant coach Adrian Griffin on Thursday denied a series of domestic violence accusations made by his ex-wife in a social media post. In a message posted to Twitter, Audrey Griffin said Adrian Griffin had repeatedly abused her, including choking her, throwing her into a wall with enough force to leave a hole and dragging her across a lawn while she was pregnant. “This morning, accusations were made against me on social media by my former wife that I vehemently deny,” Adrian Griffin said in a statement released by the Raptors. “We are involved in a longstanding legal dispute over alimony and child support arrangements. I am disappointed to have to address false accusations in this way, and I apologize for any distraction this has potentially caused for our team at this important time.”
6 hours ago – via Andrew Lopez @ ESPN

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The Raptors also issued a separate statement on the matter. “When we saw these allegations this morning, we were dismayed — Adrian is a valuable member of our team,” the team said in the statement. “Our leadership immediately spoke with him, and he flatly denied the allegations in the posts. We will support the process as he and his former partner settle these matters.” Audrey Griffin had previously made similar allegations of abuse on social media. On Thursday, she wrote in part, “How can someone do ALL of this and get away with it. … I will tell you how… just be in the NBA and win a game in the bubble. Cinderfella. That’s how. Simple.”
6 hours ago – via Andrew Lopez @ ESPN

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Cinderella Castle sits in the middle of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort. That’s about a 15-minute ride from the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex where the NBA is playing, but one coach might want to try to sneak in a visit before midnight hits. “For one night, I felt like Cinderella,” Toronto Raptors assistant coach Adrian Griffin said following Wednesday’s 125-121 win over the Philadelphia 76ers. “I had the glass slippers on.”
1 day ago – via Andrew Lopez @ ESPN

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LeVert had 27 points and a career-high 13 assists to lead the Nets to a 129-120 victory over the Clippers. Tyler Johnson added a season-high 21 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter as the Clippers tried to double team LeVert. “As far as going into Toronto, you know what to expect. Then again, there’s no homecourt advantage. You’re playing a basketball team in the same spot for however many games it takes to advance,” Johnson said. “For us, it’s continue to play our style of basketball. At this point, we understand that, if we do that, we’re capable of beating anybody, and we showed it.”
4 days ago – via Brian Lewis @ New York Post

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The Toronto Raptors paid homage to Hall of Famer and the team’s senior adviser Wayne Embry on Friday. The players arrived at the arena in T-shirts bearing Embry’s likeness and the words “Because of You” ahead of the Raptors’ game versus the Boston Celtics. Coach Nick Nurse, who wore the shirt in his pre-game Zoom video availability, explained the phrase “because of you” comes from words U.S. President Barack Obama wrote to late civil rights leader John Lewis, who died on July 17.
5 days ago – via The Canadian Press @ Yahoo! Sports

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Last year’s selection for Coach of the Year, Mike Budenholzer of the Milwaukee Bucks, also was nominated again, as was Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse and Thunder coach Billy Donovan. Budenholzer would tie Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich and Don Nelson as the only coaches to have won the award three different times with another victory.
6 days ago – via Tim Bontemps @ ESPN

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Storyline: NBA Awards
It started out as most of these things do: With an ill-advised tweet. On July 13 when the NBA announced the schedule for its restart games, the eyes of Toronto Raptors fans narrowed on an Aug. 9 date with the Memphis Grizzlies. In recent years following the franchise’s move from Vancouver to Memphis, Canada’s former second team has morphed into, well, Canada’s second team. Armed with former Raptor Jonas Valanciunas and exciting Canadians in Dillon Brooks and Brandon Clarke – with recent cameos from Delon Wright, C.J. Miles and Bruno Caboclo – the Grizzlies were a natural Western Conference rooting interest for Raptors fans.
7 days ago – via Blake Murphy @ The Athletic

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7 days ago – via Blake Murphy @ The Athletic

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When the Raptors and Grizzlies were awarded expansion franchises for the 1995-96 season, a healthy rivalry was anticipated. While some rivalries are built on playoff series and animosity, others are based on proximity. A pair of new Canadian teams expected to struggle out of the gate were natural to pit against each other, and putting something on the line was a clever way to make sure both sides had a chance at bragging rights during some lean years. The decision was made that the Raptors and Grizzlies would square off in each preseason, with the winner being awarded The Naismith Cup, in honour of the Canadian inventor of the sport, James Naismith.
7 days ago – via Blake Murphy @ The Athletic

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If the choice to award the Cup in exhibition games strikes you as strange, consider that the teams, in conjunction with NBA Canada, used it as an opportunity to host the events around the country. The five Naismith Cup matches held between 1995 and 2000 (the 1998 game was cancelled due to the lockout) were played in Winnipeg, Calgary, Halifax, Edmonton, and Ottawa. That’s a tradition the Raptors do their best to continue to this day, holding recent training camps in Victoria or Quebec City, and exhibition games in Montreal, Vancouver, and London. (They still owe St. John’s a game, as former Raptors general manager and current CEO of Canada Basketball Glen Grunwald is quick to remind us.) The touring Naismith Cup games were well-attended, ranging from 8,190 to 15,104 fans in attendance.
7 days ago – via Blake Murphy @ The Athletic

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“So on that play, at replay, Olynyk, we judged that he took an aggressive swipe and he made some contact into the facial area of Kyle Lowry,” Guthrie said in the pool report. “At replay, in my judgement, I felt like that did meet the criteria for a flagrant foul. After reviewing that more postgame, and thinking about it a little bit more, to me, it now is more of a natural basketball play going for the ball and that the contact really did not rise to the criteria of a flagrant foul. In both of these instances and cases, though, as always, I know that the league office will review them as they always do all flagrant fouls and they’ll make their determinations at the end of the day on what they think they ended up, in their judgement, that it was. But we had our judgments in the live game.”
1 week ago – via Tim Bontemps @ ESPN

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Although his role has been that of a deep bench player for the most part, Toronto Raptors wing Patrick McCaw has been a reigning NBA champion for quite a long stretch now – 1,148 days, to be exact. That’s three years, one month and 25 days straight that McCaw has been a champion, dating back to his stint with the Golden State Warriors and stretching through until now, his time with the Toronto Raptors. McCaw’s championship reign has been so lengthy, in fact, that it’s reaching historical proportions. It’s actually the second-longest consecutive stretch that one player has been a champion in NBA history since the Boston Celtics dynasty of the 1960s.
2 weeks ago – via HoopsHype

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