Toronto Raptors’ veteran Garrett Temple talks leadership, being an ally, and re-learning how to play Call of Duty for his teammates

The Toronto Raptors’ Garrett Temple will have an unconventional but memorable legacy on this franchise when all is said and done.

There is a lot about this current Toronto Raptors team that is untested and inexperienced. I hold no judgement though, as the same could be said about me. I relate to the young Raptors a lot, as someone who was thrust into the NBA as a young writer and has been finding my way ever since. I’m not immune to the nerves that come from interviewing these very important, very tall players.

So when I show up to the OVO Athletic Center on a December Sunday morning ready to interview seasoned veteran Garrett Temple, he says something I am not expecting at all.

“Do you mind if we sit down?”

We are standing on the edge of the Raptors’ practice court, where the players come to do scrums. Not a chair or bench in sight. I’m nervous to do the wrong thing, act unprofessionally in front of him.

“Like right here?” I stumble. “Yeah,” Garrett replies.

So we sit. Criss-cross applesauce on the hardwood court of one of the best NBA practice facilities in existence. “I’m much more comfortable now,” Garrett says. Now eye-to-eye with him, I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever looked an NBA player directly in the eye. I’m five-foot-one, and you can do the math from there. My nerves settle a bit — Garrett doesn’t realize his request to sit has made me feel more comfortable too.

Temple is the kind of person that makes you like him more with every new bit of information you learn about him. The 38-year-old Raptors veteran has seen it all, has been on many NBA rosters. Everything from 10-day contracts to the G-League to free agency signings. His young teammates and rookies adore him — if you follow reporting on this team you know that most players turn to him for wisdom. He is often seen on the bench, in the ear of Scottie Barnes or Ochai Agbaji, giving real-time advice.

Most of them are 10-15 years younger than him. They came up in college during the NIL era — some already entering the league with money and fame to their names. Temple on the other hand graduated from LSU in 2009, continuing the legacy of his father Collis Temple. The older Temple was the first African American to play on LSU’s men’s basketball team in 1971. Garrett lights up when his family history in Louisiana is mentioned, his pride in where he comes from evident in the way he talks with grace about the differences between these NIL-era young Raptors and his college experience.

He doesn’t think that college experience, or the current social media landscape that also did not exist when he was entering the NBA, has messed with his teammates’ enthusiasm for the game of basketball.

“Masai and Bobby did a great job scouting and getting these guys,” Temple says of the Raptors’ current rookie class of Ja’Kobe Walter, Jonathan Mogbo, Jamal Shead, Ulrich Chomche, and Jamison Battle. He notes that there is a possibility of these kids coming into the league with a lack of gratitude for the chance they have been given, because of the wealth they have the chance to build in college. He hasn’t seen that from this team.

He calls it a ‘hunger’ for the game, noting that they are all incredibly hard workers, and grounded. Their personalities and upbringings have a lot to do with it, in Temple’s opinion. They are easy to be with, and Garrett puts in the effort to connect with all of them and learn about who they are outside of basketball.

“I had to go back to video games,” he laughs, “Call of Duty. You know I was around when the first Call of Duty came out?”

Temple also speaks on taking the four rookies (Chomche was not with the team during this road trip) out to dinner in Sacramento. He wanted to have uninterrupted conversations with each of them about how they got to this point, their upbringings, and find ways to connect with them. He asked them the precise moments they realized “hey, I could actually be an NBA player.”

He mentions how it actually helps that he’s not fully in the team’s rotation on the court. No one is looking into his connection-making thinking that he’s trying to take their spot on the court. Temple has a genuine desire for the team to be better, for these young men to be better as well.

That desire also led to Temple running for a spot in the NBA’s Players Union, where he serves as the Vice President. His family history and education in business studies at LSU gave him the desire to learn about the ins and outs of this billion-dollar industry he found himself in. He first started out by going to meetings, learning about the issues his teammates where passionate about.

He didn’t expect to win his election, but notes that he thinks his peers understood his work ethic and how he made it into the league. His pitch to voters was that he had come up in a unique way, from G-League, to 10-days, to finally getting a solid spot on NBA rosters. He was the little guy. Nine years later, he’s still on the union’s board.

To him, that work is more important now than ever. Not just because of the state of the world, but to make sure his younger teammates know what resources are available to them. To let them know that someone has their back in all of it.

That support stretches over to his peers in the WNBA, who are preparing to negotiate their own Collective Bargaining Agreement after the 2025 season is over. Temple mentions that the NBPA has always helped the WNBPA with negotiations, providing help from their lawyers and having calls with the board members on the women’s side to talk over things and bounce ideas off of each other.

Their board knows that the WNBA is a much younger league than the NBA, but this boom of popularity women’s basketball has seen makes this a very important negotiating term for the WNBPA.

“It’s harder for them [to get what they deserve]” Temple notes, “Yet I think Caitlin and Angel’s success, the Unrivaled league — it’s all positive for them. It won’t be as contentious for them to negotiate based on the trajectory they are on now.”

That trajectory of popularity also has its negative side effects. While women’s basketball excitement has risen, so has instances of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and more in the community. Garrett says one way to try to combat these problems is to say bold things on big platforms. He notes Paige Bueckers’s ESPYs speech from 2021, where she credited Black women for the growth of the sport.

He also knows it’s important as NBA players to show up publicly for the WNBA. When the Raptors were recently in New Orleans, he was catching up with former Chicago Bulls teammate Javonte Green when James Wade joined in. Wade, now an assistant in Toronto, most recently served as the Head Coach and General Manager of the Chicago Sky in the WNBA. When Garrett asked how Wade and Green knew each other so well, Wade mentioned Green was court side for most Sky games in the NBA offseason.

“It’s easy to be vocal about your support of the game and support our sisters,” Temple notes.

With the WNBA arriving in Toronto in 2026, when the Toronto Tempo will enter the league, Temple thinks it’s going to be amazing.

“This city is so diverse,” Temple says, “Everyone here understands the importance of it.”

Temple brings his young son to basketball practice every Saturday, and before his son goes on, they have a girls’ practice. It brings him joy to see so many young girls playing the sport. He also hopes to make it back up to Toronto for some games once the Tempo get going.

When it comes to his decision to re-sign with the Raptors’ last summer, Temple says simply: “I love this city.” He notes how his background at LSU and his family’s involvement in civil rights made him appreciate the cultural diversity Toronto offered for his family. How great it will be for his two kids (soon-to-be three, as Temple told me his wife is expecting the family’s third child!), to have experienced life here in Toronto. As far as the team goes, he just saw so much potential, and was happy to be a part of it.

“I want to help [this team] see the potential, I know where it can go,” he says.

He’s often called a player-coach by fans, but is a real coaching career in Temple’s future after he hangs up his own jersey?

“I’ve definitely thought about it,” he says, “honestly, I’m not a fan of the travel and the grind. I have a four-year-old, two-year-old, and soon another baby. I think I would enjoy it, I don’t think they would.”

As we wind down, still cross-legged on the court, I question why I was ever nervous to talk to this guy. He maintains eye-contact, and lights up when he talks about his family. It feels like we were having a chat in a cafe or a diner.

“We could get you chairs,” Josh Su from the Raptors tells us as at one point during our conversation.

“Nah, we’re good,” Temple says with a laugh.

While the majority of this Toronto Raptors team is definitely unproven, Garrett Temple is definitely not. Having him around this team will impact these young players for their entire careers. It will help be better teammates, better men, and better allies to everyone around them — just by his example alone. During a losing season, who better to remind them about the long process of career and life? Who better to make sure they know there is still much to be gained in the absence of winning?

It’s a lesson not just for players, but everyone watching this team. That there is more to the NBA than winning. That being kind, giving back, and using the time you have to try to impact others is just as important in many ways. That staying grounded and hungry brings purpose even to the darkest days of a long winning-less stretch.

When I went back out into the cold December air that Sunday, many of these thoughts swirled. Temple’s impact on the Toronto Raptors franchise definitely reaches the heights of their young star Scottie Barnes’ development, but also goes so far down as to making an often overlooked young female writer feel like she matters in this grand scheme of covering an NBA team.

That’s Garrett Temple’s legacy as a Toronto Raptor.