I am sure everyone reading this has been hoping that I, a relatively new basketball fan, would weigh in with my thoughts on the upcoming Toronto Raptors season. Surely I will bring some fresh insight and perspective to the complex world of professional sports! Maybe not, but I do love basketball (and the Raps) and I do have thoughts (and a blog) so why not give it a shot. Lack of experience has rarely stopped anyone else from sharing their opinion.
There have been many thinkpieces about wether the Raptors should have ‘blown it all up’ this off-season vs. sticking with the status quo. I am firmly of the belief that we did the best we could given our situation and that it is better, and more fun, to have a team that is pretty good. There are no guarantees that ‘blowing it all up’ will result in anything but several (or more than several) years of outright mediocrity. That is not fun at all to watch. This is really the first time the Raptors have every been seriously good, perennially making the playoffs and winning 45+ games. This is fun! Let’s keep doing this while we can while always looking to try to get the pieces necessary to really compete. Besides, really competing against the Warriors looks to be virtually impossible right now anyway.
Raptors on court
So, from that base, here are the things I am most looking forward to this season for the Raptors:
- Seeing what DeMar brings to his game this year. Will this be the season he brings a three-point shot? Maybe, maybe not but he always improves in the off-season and I really love watching him play.
- What sneakers will DeMar wear? I think that this year his contract is up with Nike. Now, given his love of Kobe, I can’t really see him signing somewhere else but you never know. With the loss of PJ Tucker this year, DeMar is the only guy who really wears anything interesting on court.
- Finding out how many minutes Kyle plays. He is getting older and he does fade every year during play-offs. Will we be resting him more?
- Seeing which of the rookies takes it to the next level. I have high hopes for Delon Wright and Poeltl (and no hopes for Caboclo). We really need them to become major factors off the bench this season in order to progress as a team.
- OG Anunoby! Always fun to see the new guy play. Hope it is sooner rather than later and that this draft pick pans out for us.
- The return of VC. Is this the year we bring him back on some sort of one day contract? Fans are still split on their opinion of him but with time and recent quotes from VC and the Carter Effect documentary, people seem to be softening.
Mostly though, I just want to be back at the ACC on opening night, cheering for the Raptors with all the bright hopes for the season ahead of us, enjoying basketball again.
Let’s Go Raptors!
Hype Less 