The Toronto Raptors are on a victory tour following the team’s NBA championship victory over Golden State, but don’t expect the White House to be among the stops.
Former UNC star Danny Green joined Yahoo’s “Inside the Green Room” and spoke about the team’s tentative decision should the Raptors receive an invite to the White House from President Donald Trump
“I just don’t think that we accept,” Green said “And I try to respect everybody in every field that they do regardless of how crazy things are. But [President Trump] makes it really hard. He makes it very, very tough to respect how he goes about things and does things. To put it politely, I think it’s a hard no.”
No NBA champion has visited the White House since Trump took office. Golden State, the champions in 2017 and 2018, elected not to visit and Trump tweeted, “Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!”
Trump was noncommittal about inviting the Raptors to the White House when asked, saying, “If they’d like to do it, we’ll think about that.”
Meanwhile, the Raptors are enjoying a victory tour in Canada as the first team outside the United States to win the title.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau invited the team to Parliament Hill in Ottawa and appeared onstage with players in last week’s victory rally in Toronto. Ottawa mayor Jim Watson also reached out, saying the team should forget about visiting the White House.
Green and fellow Raptors star Kawhi Leonard have already visited the White House as NBA champions. As members of the San Antonio Spurs, Green and Leonard visited the White House and former president Barack Obama after defeating the Miami Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals.
Featured image via Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
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