A week after former Raptor Thaddeus Young spoke out about his “tough” time living and playing in Toronto, another ex-player has joined the chorus.
Rudy Gay, whose time with the Raptors could be described as tumultuous at best, spoke out about his life in the Great White North, trashing – of all things – Torontonians’ accents.
“Toronto, it’s tough, man,” Gay said on a recent episode of the Knuckleheads Podcast.
“That weak-ass accent they got,” Gay said when asked about his problem with Raptors fans. “They hate me, I don’t know why they hate me. You ever got traded from somewhere and the fans boo you? They traded me, I ain’t ask for no trade.”
This is not the first time that Gay has spoken poorly about his time in Toronto. The swingman was acquired by the Raptors from the Memphis Grizzlies in early 2013 and was shipped out to the Sacramento Kings less than a year later.
During his two partial seasons with the Raptors, Gay averaged 19.5 points per game, but shot at a career-low percentage while averaging more attempts than anywhere else in his 17-year NBA career.
“You think I wanted to go to Toronto? … If I wanted to get traded, why the f*** would I go to Toronto?” Gay said on an episode of the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast in May 2024.
Speaking on the Out the Mud Podcast, Young, now retired, touched on a number of topics, but the viral clip surrounds his feelings on living in Toronto.
Young spent parts of three seasons with the Raptors, though the first, following his acquisition from San Antonio, featured all home games in Tampa Bay, where the team temporarily relocated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, Young was playing and living in Toronto for the full season that followed and part of the next until he was dealt away. It proved to be a challenge.
“I ain’t gonna lie, being in Toronto was kinda tough,” Young said on the podcast. “It’s cool to visit, be there for like four or five days, but to live there, it was tough. It was tough on my family.”
Shades of Raptors legend Antonio Davis lamenting that his kids had to learn the metric system or Chris Bosh saying Toronto players couldn’t get “good cable.”
“It’s almost like you’re at a disadvantage,” Young continued. “We had to go through the airport every single time. You gotta go through the airport, it’s the Customs part of it. It’s like, you mean to tell me I just paid for the package and now I’ve got to pay more money to get my package from you? Like, c’mon, man. Customs? Then getting stuck at the border. I got stuck at the border for like three or four hours.”
On the other hand, former Sixth Man of the Year Award winner Lou Williams was much more complimentary of the city – though he did acknowledge there are disadvantages.
“Canada has its own culture. It has its own heritage and things of that nature,” Williams said on FanDuel TV’s Run It Back. “And so there are some adjustments that you’re probably not used to when you’re an American, when you go to go to play there.”
When asked about Young’s comment that it “sucked” to play in Toronto, Williams disagreed.
“I wouldn’t say that it sucked for me,” he said. “I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Toronto, but it definitely has its disadvantages when you play for the Raptors as opposed to being on the opposing team.”