Tonight, at 7pm, the Raptors host Philadelphia in our season opener. If you bounce around and check out the American media's predictions for this season, our Raps aren't getting much respect.
- The NBA GM survey doesn't mention the Raptors at all. Their picks to win the Atlantic Division are Boston, New Jersey and New York.
- The SI Power Rankings don't even have us in the top ten.
- This Fox Sports blog doesn't even care enough to mention us. It likes the Bulls.
- Somehow Associated Content has the Nets, Celtics and 76ers ahead of us in the division. Yikes!
- Hollinger at ESPN has us finishing 8th in the conference.
- The Sports Watchers don't even have us making the playoffs.
- ESPN, at least, have us tied with New Jersey as the 2nd most likely to win our division. They're picking Boston.
You get the idea. Nobody thinks we're going to win the division again and few give us a hope and a prayer of coming out of the conference. Listen to me now and hear me later, we're a better team than we were last year and we were pretty damn good last year. It's possible the Nets win the division, but this year we actually win a playoff round, maybe two.
Bargnani will be greatly improved, Bosh is still awesome and Kapono can shoot the lights out. The fun starts tonight. Go Raptors Go!
