TRUE NORTH STRONG
Raptors fans dreaming of NBA final preview as Warriors hit town.
We the North. We the Ignored. For years it was been the annual recurring storyline in Raptorland: If Americans were talking about the best teams in basketball, they were talking about the best teams not based in Canada.
“Same old thing … It don’t matter what we do,” DeMar DeRozan, Toronto’s since-departed stalwart used to say.
The Raptors could send two players to the all-star game three straight years, or reel off three-straight 50-plus-win seasons. But when it came to receiving U.S.-based respect, they were eternally forgotten schleps.
So let’s assume this new development will take some getting used to. Six weeks into the still-young NBA season, Americans are beginning to size up this year’s crop of championship contenders. And more than one finger is pointing north.
“Probably the best team in basketball right now,” Ron Adams, the longtime Golden State assistant coach, said of the Raptors in the San Jose Mercury News.
“They got something really special up there in Canada right now,” Klay Thompson, the Warriors all-star, was saying this week.
Come again? Yes, the Raptors have the best record in the NBA with 18 wins in their opening 22 games including an impressive comeback from a 17-point deficit in Memphis on Tuesday that ran their winning streak to six games. But no, the Raptors are not accustomed to such intense doses of high praise. ESPN and Sports Illustrated had them No. 1 in their NBA power rankings this week. Las Vegas has them ranked as the second favourite behind the Warriors to win the NBA championship.
And Thompson, looking ahead to Golden State’s only regular-season visit to Toronto on Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena, was particularly effusive in his assessment.
“They’re going to be a great test for us,” Thompson said. “Who knows? It might be a preview of June.”
A preview of June? For a Torontobased franchise that’s never played beyond May, and whose previous dreams of the NBA final were of the pipe variety thanks to the Eastern residency of a nemesis named LeBron, this is heady stuff. With LeBron in La-La Land, suddenly backers of the Raptors don’t appear to be out in left field.
Which is not to say the Raptors are buying the incoming praise. Nick Nurse, the Raptors rookie coach, passed it off as gamesmanship. “I think Klay is being very gracious, and we thank him for that,” Nurse said. “He’s going out of his way to not give us any ammunition.” Ditto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet. “It’s funny when guys who are that cold-blooded on the court make nice comments,” VanVleet said.
“They are established as champions and it’s our job to knock them down. But we have a lot of work to do between now (and) then.”
And if you were expecting Kawhi Leonard to be the hype man for Thursday’s matchup given his history as a thorn in the Warriors’ side — um, no. The new-in-town Raptors star is easily the biggest reason for the shift in Stateside perception of Canada’s team. But just because he’s the key reason for the hype doesn’t mean he’s verbally fuelling it.
“It’s just a regular-season game,” Leonard said. “Just another chance for us to get better and build on what we’re doing. I pretty much look forward to playing any game that I play.”
Good to hear the Raptors are still possessed of their underdog spirit. Staying humble is key. But with all due respect to Leonard’s outlook, Thursday’s game is more than another game. It’s a moment to dream. Not about Leonard’s long-term future as an impending free agent; that’ll be a matter for July. This is a mo- ment to dream about why, if you care about this team, you ought to forego making summer vacation plans that commence before June 16. That, according to the NBA, is the last possible date for Game 7 of the final.
Who’s to say it can’t happen? Nobody’s suggesting Toronto is without peer in the East, which hasn’t been this good in years. There’s still Boston. And as much as the Celtics have looked dysfunctional at times, they’ve got most of the next five months to find solutions to their ball-distribution issues.
There’s still Philadelphia, winners of five of seven since Jimmy Butler joined the squad. There’s still Milwaukee, which blew out the Warriors at Oracle a few weeks back and own the league’s best net rating.
None of those teams are pushovers. But none of them seem remotely comparable to the roadblock once posed by James, who represented the Eastern Conference in eight straight NBA finals before his move West.
And even the Warriors don’t seem like the impenetrable juggernaut of previous years. Sure, they’ve won three of the past four NBA championships. And they’re still favourites to win their fourth in five years. But before their current threegame win streak they’d lost six of eight. And the edges looked frayed. Big names Kevin Durant and Draymond Green have publicly sparred; Green has been internally suspended. The Warrior bench, 29th in the NBA in reserve scoring, seems particularly sparse.
And plain old wear and tear seems considerable. Green has missed the past six games to a sprained toe. Steph Curry has missed the past 10 to a groin injury (Kerr said Wednesday that he’ll miss the game against Toronto but will play Saturday in Detroit). If health and depth and harmony aren’t givens, neither is another ring.
“This is the real NBA. We haven’t been in the real NBA the last few years. We’ve been in this dream,” Kerr told reporters a while back. “And so now we’re (facing) real adversity and we got to get out of it ourselves.”
Which is not to say the Raptors won’t approach their opponent with appropriate respect on Thursday.
“Nobody does it like them,” Nurse said Wednesday, speaking of the oft-copied Warriors. “They still crush you with that 30-footer, and then another one. They do.”
Killing the Raptors with kindness or crushing them with 30-footers, no matter how Thursday’s game turns out, remember this: It started from what feels like a place of mutual respect. For a Toronto franchise that previously craved it and chased it in vain, it’s just another sign that this has the makings of a season unlike any other.