Toronto to Tampa, in 6 weeks: Inside the Raptors’ frantic COVID-19 relocation

TAMPA, Fla. — Jama Mahlalela is a dad racing against the holiday clock in a Florida Walmart.

It’s Dec. 16. In a few days, his family will join him in Tampa Bay, where his employer, the Toronto Raptors, will play home games for at least the start of the 2020-21 NBA season. Mahlalela, an assistant coach with the team, would like his family’s temporary home to be holiday-ready for his five-year-old daughter, Mia, and three-year-old son, Jace, so he picks up a Christmas tree and a few other small gifts. He crosses his fingers that the family’s Volkswagen, which is being shipped from Toronto with the kids’ other presents in the trunk, arrives on time.

Earlier in the week, Mahlalela moved out of the team hotel situated next door to Amalie Arena and into a rental in Wesley Chapel, about a half-hour drive north of Tampa. He happily traded the proximity to work for the extra bedroom and outdoor space the house will provide his family.

“It’s a major change,” he says. “It’s been a lot, and I think there’s a lot of detail that goes into that. But our organization has been incredible. The people that are part of this thing, we found a way to do it.”

While Mahlalela is attempting to outpace the Advent calendar, staff inside Amalie Arena are up against a timeline set by the NBA’s schedule makers. With the season opener a week away, workers are doing everything possible to make the Raptors feel at home. They’re hustling to finish lining the walls of the locker room and Nurse’s office with Raptors imagery, such as “We the North,” the Larry O’Brien Trophy and the team’s defensive principles. The Raptors’ 2019 World Champions banner has already been raised to Amalie’s rafters — some 2,100 kilometres south of its usual perch.

These are the finishing touches on a remarkable six-week-long effort to turn the home of the NHL’s defending Stanley Cup champions into a haven for pro basketball players from Toronto. When the Raptors and New Orleans Pelicans tip-off on Dec. 23, it will mark the culmination of a series of feats — logistical and personal — that have required the work of nearly everyone in two organizations under a next-to-impossible timeline, amid a pandemic.

And it all started with a casual conversation between two NHL general managers.

Prior to the Canadian government’s late November decision to deny the Raptors a quarantine exemption so they could open the season playing home games out of Toronto, the Raptors began work on a “parallel path,” as general manager Bobby Webster put it. While the Raptors’ strong preference right up until the official “no” was to find a way to make Toronto work, they knew they were up against long odds. They needed a plausible Plan B.

The idea of the Raptors temporarily moving to Tampa Bay and playing out of the Lightning’s Amalie Arena first presented itself during a conversation between Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas and Lightning GM Julien BriseBois. From there, the idea was handed over to Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment chief revenue officer Jeff Deline and Lightning CEO Steve Griggs.

Dubas, who has a close relationship with both Webster and Raptors president Masai Ujiri, downplayed his role in the process.

“Our organization would do anything to help the Raptors as they would do for us,” Dubas said in a statement provided to The Athletic. 

The Lightning’s Griggs and MLSE’s Deline got the ball rolling quickly, in part, thanks to their own longstanding relationship. Griggs, an Aurora, Ont., native and former junior and university hockey player, worked for the Raptors from 1994 to 1999. In his Amalie Arena office hangs a framed picture of Tim Horton in a Leafs jersey, a parting gift from his MLSE coworkers when he left to join the Minnesota Wild in 1999. Griggs’ father Dennis was a close friend of Horton and played a hand in helping him start his chain of coffee shops. Horton himself taught Griggs to skate.

The Raptors still needed someone on the ground to provide a hands-on assessment of Tampa’s facilities. Enter Chad Sanders, the Raptors 905 general manager, who is based in Nashville during the offseason. His ability to travel freely throughout the U.S. without having to worry about re-entering Canada and going into quarantine made him the logical choice to help the Raptors evaluate not only Tampa, but other U.S. cities under consideration early in the process.

Our home away from home. #WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/23T9wjUtzv

— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) December 15, 2020

Nashville was one such city, as was Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The latter however was deemed too close to Miami’s market. (The Lightning and Raptors both have close relationships with the nearby Orlando Magic, and that proximity has been considered at each turn.) Louisville, long thought to be a potential future NBA expansion destination, offered up their city but was never strongly considered. With Sanders, who has an operations background via his role in the G League and his time managing the Dominican Republic’s national team, working as the local U.S. eyes and ears for MLSE back in Toronto, Tampa quickly emerged as the favourite. The NBA played a limited role in the Raptors’ decision. Once the location was determined, though, they got to work assisting with hotels, locker rooms and safety protocols.

On Nov. 7, two weeks before the Raptors officially announced their plans, Sanders was in Tampa to tour the city and potential facilities with members of the Lightning, Vinik Sports Group and a group called the Tampa Sports Commission.

In Tampa, the Lightning, MLB’s Rays, and the NFL’s Buccaneers all have different owners. Hillsborough County owns Amalie Arena and Raymond James Stadium. The City of St. Petersburg owns Tropicana Field. The University of South Florida owns its arena, the Yuengling Center. Despite that, the various entities work together as often as possible, especially when it comes to major events and business opportunities. “Team Tampa,” as the parties refer to their collective under the Tampa Sports Commission banner, believes the success of each team or event like a Super Bowl or WrestleMania, only help the city flourish as a growing sports tourism destination.

“The thing from the start was we just wanted to communicate that Tampa Bay is a community that would absolutely welcome the Raptors in a very big way, and we’re ready to roll out the red carpet,” said Jason Aughey, senior vice president of sports tourism for the Tampa Bay Sports Commission. “We wanted to act as a personal concierge of sorts.”

That approach to service made the Raptors eventual decision easier. Sure, Tampa’s warm weather is a plus, but in order for a move of this scale to be successful over the long term it would require much more than just sunshine. For starters, the Raptors’ temporary home arena would need some flexible dates. Amalie Arena, which has hosted NBA exhibition games and NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments in the past, could offer that. Just as importantly, the team would need somewhere to practice, somewhere for players and staff to live — possibly for several months — and somewhere to hold its fast approaching training camp.

Southern hospitality

Adjacent to Amalie Arena is the new JW Marriott. Opening on Dec. 20, the hotel is owned by Strategic Property Partners, a joint venture between Vinik and Bill Gates’ Cascade Investments. The JW was never envisioned to serve as a basketball facility, but it was willing to transform an entire floor of the property to meet the Raptors’ needs.

Other issues were quickly addressed. The Marriott Water Street, a five-minute walk from the arena located along Tampa’s sunny riverwalk and connected to the JW by a tunnel, was a willing lodging host for the Raptors until they found more permanent homes. Saint Leo University, a 30-minute drive from Amalie Arena and a member of Team Tampa, agreed to host Raptors training camp following a call between Raptors head coach Nick Nurse and Saint Leo’s men’s basketball head coach Lance Randall. The two men are former head coaches of the Birmingham Bullets of the British Basketball League.

“That’s how our relationship started,” Nurse told reporters earlier this month. “Very good basketball coach, and then when we were starting to look around down here for possible facilities, I knew he was here around Tampa somewhere, and I gave him a call and we spoke and he was trying to do everything possible to accommodate us.

“Jeez, his wife even baked us chocolate chip cookies yesterday,” added Nurse. “That’s how special the touch has been.”

Off the court, in addition to the weather, the Tampa area offered the players a number of additional benefits, from quality golf courses — “I don’t play bad courses, man,” Kyle Lowry told reporters earlier this month — to access to high-end car rentals and the possibility of Super Bowl tickets when the game takes place Feb. 7.

“We felt like we had a great basketball setup, which I think was our main focus: How do we not sacrifice basketball whenever we move our program?” Sanders said.

Sanders, Raptors vice president of basketball operations Teresa Resch, Vinik Sports Group executive vice president of event management Kevin Preast, Lightning executive vice president of communications Bill Wickett, Aughey, the Tampa Sports Commission and a host of others became involved in the execution from there, with Tampa-Toronto Zoom call numbers sometimes reaching 50 participants.

There was a destination and there was a game plan. Hanging above it all was an enormous ticking clock, with the regular season scheduled to start in a month’s time.

A different kind of ballroom

At the Raptors’ makeshift practice facility inside the JW Marriott, one rule was implied: No full-court heaves.

The space where the Raptors will host practices as long as they remain in Tampa was originally billed by the hotel as “Tampa’s first, genuine luxury wedding venue.” The room features two massive chandeliers that hang over the court. They will punctuate a stunning setup when the ballroom’s 29,100 square feet reverts to hosting weddings and banquets with up to 3,200 guests.

The divider walls surrounding the court were initially deemed too dark and plain, necessitating late additions of extra wall-wrapping featuring the Raptors huddled up, or the words “Expect To Win” written in large letters in the team’s well-known font. As of late last week during a tour of the facility, Raptors equipment manager Paul Elliott and assistant equipment manager Curtis Andrade still had a room filled with boxes of team gear and other ancillary equipment waiting to be unpacked. Locker stalls for some roster hopefuls looked very temporary, ready to soon create space for further distancing between players.

But for the most part, they’ve pulled it off.

The Raptors haven’t just taken over the largest ballroom in the hotel — they’ve commandeered the entire fourth floor of the property, roughly 70,000 square feet. To turn the space over so quickly, the Raptors relied on a number of partners. Disney provided a pair of courts that were used in the NBA bubble in Orlando. Five truckloads were needed to deliver gear from the OVO Athletic Centre in Toronto. Team Tampa helped connect the Raptors with local sources for signage and branding to make the space feel like home.

The operation was an upsized version of what the Toronto Blue Jays went through earlier this year with the conversion of their Triple-A Buffalo site to their short-term MLB home. BaAM Productions ran point converting Buffalo’s Sahlen Field. A recommendation from the Blue Jays carried weight when the Raptors called for a reference.

Garrett Mills, BaAM’s manager of production, received his first call from the Raptors on Nov. 19, the day before the move was officially announced. By Nov. 22, he was in Tampa. His team began the work on Dec. 1 while the hotel itself was still under construction, forcing the two crews to share a freight elevator.

Just 10 days later, the facility was officially turned over to the Raptors and ready for use.

“Operationally, we had targeted knowing that we needed about two weeks to really hit go and get everything done that we needed to,” Resch said. “It’s obviously been at a warp-speed timeline, that’s for sure. … (I’m) not saying we over-extended ourselves, but it’s not easy to do basketball, NBA-level, in a hotel ballroom.”

BaAM and the Raptors were able to replicate an impressive amount of their OVO facility, from two full-sized courts with four baskets to socially distanced locker rooms, a large weight area that rivals the Lightning’s full-time setup at Amalie Arena, a large office for Nurse, a coaches room, a separate locker room for female staff, training and rehab necessities, valet parking and more. It doesn’t have showers, but there’s only so much you can expect to accomplish in two weeks. Ripping up the new hotel’s plumbing didn’t make the cut.

“It’s an awesome sight to see,” Sanders said. “It’s really impressive to see such a production was put together in such a short amount of time. I think everyone’s pretty happy with the outcome.”

There are roughly 60 members of the Raptors organization — including players — expected to spend at least some time in Florida. Most of them with families have opted to bring them down.

“I think what we all know here, and I think what’s super important, is basketball isn’t just on the court,” said Raptors director of basketball advancement Shelby Weaver, who is now running the two Toronto businesses she owns remotely. “Things happen outside of the court and in your life that can affect how you are on the court. The idea that we can separate both, I think, is sort of archaic, and we’re not doing them any favours by just looking at them as a basketball player. We’re going to be here for a while and we want people to have a life that they’re happy with.”

The first step was figuring out where everyone would live. While some might opt to just stay in the hotel indefinitely — Nurse, for example, expressed a fondness for the close proximity to the practice facility and arena — others have sought more private accommodations, settling in the nearby Tampa neighbourhoods of Hyde Park and Harbour Island as well as other areas a little farther from the downtown core.

Team services manager Jennifer Taylor went on a number of housing visits with players, while Weaver helped find housing for staff. The Raptors are taking care of their staff with a housing allowance. It remains unclear to what degree the team or NBA are willing to support the players. Normally, teams paying for player housing when not on the road is prohibited, as it could be considered circumvention of the salary cap. But nothing is “normal” about this setup. The Raptors, NBA and NBPA continue to work through how much of the total costs associated with the move the Raptors will remain on the hook for.

“It was the biggest best place I could get for the budget,” Mahlalela said of his eventual choice. “Just like a nice big four-bedroom. The grandparents are gonna come down, too. It’s got a really big backyard that turns into a playground for the community. So for the kids, it’s gonna be great.”

Committing to a place was easier for some Raptors than others. Fred VanVleet brought his family down almost immediately, and they were in attendance for the team’s first preseason game in Tampa on Dec. 18. For Oshae Brissett, who has a young daughter at home, his decision was more complicated. On the roster bubble and competing for a spot in camp, Brissett didn’t want to uproot his family amid the uncertainty. (He was waived on Saturday.) Paul Watson Jr., meanwhile, was holding off on shipping out his car until he was sure he was sticking around. (He made the team.)

Weaver and Taylor have been exploring whether it’s possible to bring the children of Raptors staff members together in a safe and responsible way for some social interaction. (They also had kicked the idea of establishing collective schooling, though that idea didn’t get far given distancing protocols and the wide age range of the children.)

“We’re in the best possible circumstance to be doing what we’re doing. They look after everything for us,” said new Raptors centre Aron Baynes. “So it’s really not much stress on us in terms of what we have to do on a day-to-day schedule.”

And then there’s the matter of the smaller, day-to-day things, like where to get a haircut. Fortunately for some players, a local connection has come through. Former Blue Jays Marcus Stroman and José Bautista recommended a barber based in nearby Clearwater they would use when in Dunedin for spring training. Sanders has a relationship with Bautista’s brother-in-law from his time in the Dominican, and he’s passed on a lot of local recommendations for the team. 

“I think it’s gonna be a smooth transition,” Lowry said. “The city of Tampa’s been unbelievable to us and it’s gonna be a real good time for us.”

What can’t be replaced

Enter Amalie Arena through security at Gate D and the contrast between Lightning and Raptors colours strikes you immediately. The bulk of the arena’s back halls are done up in Lightning blue and white. Anything convertible, such as the monitors that line the walk to the locker room, have been changed over to Raptors red. It is somehow even more arresting than at Scotiabank Arena, when the back-of-house changes abruptly from Leafs to Raptors colours as you pass the media workroom.

Nothing is off-limits for the Raptors except the Lightning’s dressing room itself. The current arrangement allows the teams to share the weight room and training areas, with the Raptors setting up in an unused locker room on the home team’s side of the arena.

As comfortable as they’ll try to make it, some small elements are missing. The Raptors locker room at Amalie is well-sized, but the stalls aren’t as large as the ones at Scotiabank Arena and the chairs aren’t as opulent. On the bench, the Raptors won’t have access to their new, heated, adjustable seats from Scotiabank. They’ll be making do instead with an older model. Given the scale of what was before them, this is small stuff.

What may be the most jarring in-arena adjustment is the atmosphere. The Raptors have done what they can to bring home to Tampa, right down to hanging the 2019 championship banner next to the sweaters of Lightning greats Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis.

“It certainly gives you a boost, just a little bit of juice or energy or whatever,” Nurse said. “That was about the second thing I noticed when I walked in. I was like, ‘Hey, the banner!’ It’s nice to have the touches of home, for sure.”

The team’s new court, a sharp, chevroned pattern with the word “North” written in 30 different languages around the border, makes it look like Toronto on television. Anton Wright, MLSE’s director of game presentation, will be on-site indefinitely to get the visuals and audio just right, working with Amalie Arena event coordinator Jordan Fisher. Dome Productions, who deliver the broadcast feeds, have production trucks on-site. Matt Devlin, Jack Armstrong and Leo Rautins will call games for TSN and Sportsnet from a makeshift studio at Scotiabank Arena. It’s expected that Raptors games will be broadcast locally in Tampa, with the details being worked out with the Lightning and Magic. An announcement is expected soon.

Raptors personalities such as in-game hosts Strizzy and Kat Stefankiewicz and longtime public address announcer Herbie Kuhn are not in Tampa. Players may have adapted to seeing digital fans in the bubble, but sparse human crowds may be even more difficult to get used to, as the sounds from a few thousand socially distanced fans is mixed with piped-in crowd noise.

On Dec. 20, the NHL announced plans to play a 56-game regular season commencing Jan. 13. That is something the Raptors and Lightning have planned for all along. Preast, MLSE’s senior director of operations and general manager of facilities Caroline Wright and a host of others from the team, event and league perspectives worked together to ensure the Raptors’ schedule was flexible on a number of fronts. Not only can the Raptors schedule seamlessly accommodate the Lightning’s own return to play, but there are also built-in transition plans should the Raptors be able to return to Toronto at some point during the season.

“Honestly we were like, ‘Let’s take care of what’s barreling down at us and we’ll figure it out,’” Preast said. “There were a lot of different scenarios going through it. There was a lot of texting and late-night calls. We ended up getting it pretty darn close, so we felt good about it.”

The decision to allow a limited number of fans inside Amalie Arena, was determined by local governments, provided the NBA’s safety standards were adhered to. Arena officials estimate they’ve spent over $2 million on new health and safety measures.

During the game on Friday, the quiet, largely segregated crowd meant you could almost hear a collective sigh when Lowry’s first 3-point attempt went up against the Heat. For Raptors fans back home, it was just good to see Lowry back on the court. For the dozens of people who have spent long days and countless hours preparing the arena, city and hotels for that high-leverage dry run, Friday was far more anxious.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Wickett said prior to the game. “Don’t get me wrong, there will be plenty of relief bouncing around this building on Friday night after the game ends. Probably even more so after the (regular season-opening) game on the 23rd. The last month has been relatively quiet around here and it’s great to see all the employees bring all the energy again to bring live events to people, because that’s what we do.”

The question has come up a few times, albeit half-jokingly: If the Raptors win the 2021 NBA championship, should the Tampa staff get rings? What about the folks at BaAM Productions? Lightning star centre and Toronto native Steven Stamkos, if he’s the lone fan allowed courtside? Would a parade take place in Tampa? Toronto? Or should they carve a route from one to the other?

The Raptors are not NBA title favourites. Still, the question does illustrate a truth: The Raptors haven’t done all this work and are making all these sacrifices for nothing.

“It was really cool, getting the experience,” said Sanders. “Later on down the road, I can say, ‘We did this, we pulled this off. So now we just want to go win some games, and look back and say, ‘Hey this was all worthwhile, look what we did.’”

What all of the organizations involved have accomplished could end up being the story of the Raptors’ 2020-21 season. Getting to the season opener Wednesday on schedule, and without any major bumps in the road is an unquestioned success. What would make it even sweeter though, is if it were to become a sidebar to an even better story on the court.

“You have every opportunity in a season like this, even if you don’t have to relocate, to have excuses,” Weaver said. “The fact that we’ve just refused to accept that and we’re like, ‘No, even if we have to move, we have to leave the country, we have to uproot our families, leave our businesses, leave our friends, leave our homes and come down here, we’re gonna make this worthwhile.’ We’re not coming down here for nothing.”

(Photo: Blake Murphy / The Athletic)