Masai Ujiri always saw the Raptors as something bigger than just the franchise or the city or even the country. He saw the team as a conduit to a create hope around the world, a way to instill optimism in young women and young men in Canada, Africa, Europe, Asia ... wherever.

And now that Ujiri presides over an NBA champion, the first from outside the United States and one with a roster full of players from every background imaginable and a half-dozen different countries, he will leverage that title to spread that word, justifying his passion about a game and a franchise he believes can be more than just a sports team.

The championship gives him a certain cache, proof positive that his vision of winning and winning big could come to fruition, and he wants that message, that vision to resonate around the world.

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“There’s something about this team that reaches out to every person in this world, just something unique about it,” Ujiri said. ”It’s crazy what we represent here and it’s something that we’re proud of, we’re really, really proud of because it’s something that identifies with what Toronto is, diversity.

“It’s what 44 (former U.S. president Barack Obama) said to me when he came to the games: ‘Wow, look at the people, to look at different types of people at the game is unique to come to a Raptors game’ and it trickles down.

“We can take it to another level because more youth are going to identify with that forever.”

In a fascinating, passionate, one-hour media session Tuesday morning, when he laid bare his feelings and what he wants the Raptors NBA title to grow into, the underlying theme Ujiri put forward was the Raptors are what Toronto, what Canada, is and should be.

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Diverse. United. Determined. An example.

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The nuts and bolts of the team, free agency and building for 2019-20 will unravel over the next couple of weeks and there was hardly anything earth-shattering in that regard Monday.

Ujiri is confident the Raptors have shown Kawhi Leonard “who we are” as the all-star’s free agency decision approaches and the president says he’s in constant contact with Leonard and his advisers. Ujiri would like to “run it back” with the same roster that just won the championship but that he’s got Plans B and C in place because it’s the nature of the business. He said he’s not leaving any time soon – “I love it here, my family loves it here, my wife loves it here, which is very important, my kids are Canadians,” he said — and that the pursuit of a second title will be as important as chasing the first.

But the gist of his wide-ranging time at the microphone was on what the Raptors could do to foster global interest not only in the NBA and the team but that dreaming big is as important as anything else, perhaps more.

His affinity to and connection with Africa is a perfect case in point. The native of Nigeria has been preaching hope and chasing dreams and the pursuit of excellence through his Giants of Africa foundation and the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders program for almost two decades. Now he will go back with the ultimate reason why those dreams should never die.

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“I can’t wait to celebrate this, especially on the continent (of Africa), just to give all these kids hope and for them to see that they can make it,” he said. “When those girls in Samburu (Kenya) gave me this (bracelet), I thought about winning. And I thought about how it would be to win and come and celebrate. When I think of all those places we go to, all of those refugee camps, I think, ‘Why do those places exist? They are not supposed to exist. What hope do you give to these people?’ Then I think about where Pascal (Siakam of Cameroon) or (Cameroon’s Joel) Embiid or Giannis (Antetokounmpo, born in Greece to Nigerian immigrants) … I think of where all these guys started and where I started.

“And I’m telling you that one day, I’m going to tell an unbelievable story, I guarantee you that. It’s going to be an unbelievable story. And you know what? That story includes a championship. And I’m so freaking proud that it does.”

And it starts in diverse Toronto, it starts with the Raptors’ reach to Cameroon, Spain, Nigeria, North Philadelphia, Taiwan and the Republic of Congo.

They are what we are and of that Ujiri is most proud.

“We’re going to capture the world,” he said. “There’s just a different reach from here. Let’s call a spade a spade. This is what it is. We should have seen this years ago and we’re seeing it now. Let’s plan for years to come. There is something here.”

Correction - June 26, 2019: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Giannis Antetokounmpo was born in Nigeria.