The signs of fall are around us. The weather’s getting a little chillier, schools are starting, women are wearing more clothes and even a few leaves are turning brown. Most of all though there is the sweet stench of approaching training camp in the air. The festivities start on September 30th at Carleton University in Ottawa with an intra-squad game on October 4th (only two days after Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday!). The Raptors will be holding two-a-day practices to start things off and Bryan Colangelo likes it. He figures Chris Bosh would’ve had a full 6-week break since the Olympics ended and will be ready to go:
Chris will be in his best shape ever, and I know he wants to keep the momentum going. By the time we start camp, he will have had a full five- or six-week break, so everyone will be ready to go.
Best shape sounds nice but Chris will have to be his “best ever” in a lot of different categories if we hope to taste some post-season success.
Tim Chisholm – who I always find extremely hard to disagree with – has a piece on TSN.ca where he’s giving some realistic facts about the team and highlighting the importance of the Bargnani factor along with the big fat question marks at the wing position. It’s basically what we’ve talked about all summer long, the media’s finally getting around to it. I think the final paragraph sums it up:
The point is that the Raptors have more questions than answers right now all about its roster. The hope is that at least a couple of the uncertainties work out in their favor as they try to keep the team competitive while they wait for free agent money to come available this summer or next (depending on whether O’Neal opts out in 2009 or lets his deal expire in 2010). By no stretch is this team in danger of losing ground to last year’s disappointing 41-41 record, as just the quality in the top-five should keep them above .500, but whether or not Colangelo’s risks have improved the team enough to become truly relevant yet remains to be seen.
On to Hoops World writing off our chances as Atlantic Division winners. So who do you think they picked? The Celtics? Wrong, its the Philadelphia 76ers who they think will win usurp Boston as champs. The Celtics might go into cruise control for the better part of the year but I doubt it, they realize how important home-court advantage is to them and will play hard from day one despite the veterans. The Raptors’ chances are written off as “As for the Toronto Raptors – they’ll need time to adjust with both JO and Chris Bosh”. I hate these realistic twats.
Fan Boy who has been a great supporter of the blog from early days is having a 50% sale with some good things up for grabs. Check out the site and see if you like anything. In October I hope to give both the readers of this blog a coupon which will give them free shipping on Fan Boy gear. That’s your incentive for coming back again and again.
That’s all there is to it really.