When we lost the Jets back in 97, I tried to remain a hockey fan by cheering for the Yotes and participating in numerous drafts. When the game went down the crapper, with the trap, hooking holding, and just a sluggish product that provided little entertainment, I migrated over to basketball, and particularly the Raptors.
I was always a novice fan till that point, but without a hockey team to cheer for, I completely submerged my interest into the Raps, becoming a very big fan. I cheered through some very mediocre years, and felt a similar pain to losing the Jets, when Bosh left for Miami.
When the Jets came back to me, it was like a girlfriend that had left you many years ago for another person, only to return to you when things didn’t work out. Now I had a new person in my life that was there for me over the past decade. Of course I became a fan of the Jets immediately, but I will not relinquish my love for the game of basketball, and more importantly my Raps.
This season was a weird one. I was hoping for a tank season for the Raps in hopes of drafting Wiggens, and early on it looked like that was the case. With 82 NBA games and 82 NHL games to witness every season, the wife can get a bit testy if I am watching a sporting event 6 days a week, so I decided to pay more attention to the Jets this past season, and hope for losses with my Raps.
Then the Gay trade happened, and everything changed. Basketball is a fickle sport were the smallest ingredient can change the chemistry of an entire unit, and its fortune. When Gay left, so did his 25 shots a game, this spread our offense out, engaged more players in it, and reduced the bad shots Gay was jacking up. Alas success followed and this team went on a tear. That is when I turned my attention back to the Raps.
The playoffs showed TSN, the NBA and this country that Canadians have a love for the sport. Not to the level of hockey of course, but there is huge interest in this sport from this country. It is played in almost every high school across the province, and both our Universities run great basketball programs. It was really nice to see the sport get the attention it deserves.
When Vince Carter was producing highlight reels every night, the country paid attention; so much so that now we are seeing a slew of young Canadian basketball talent coming into the NBA as a direct result from these kids watching Carter back in 2000.
Anyways, I seen this thread and it made me smile, knowing that if the Raps win, there are many people that would jump on board across this country and support them. They are a very young team (3rd youngest in the NBA I believe) they have great young talent in Derozan, Jonas Val, Ross and Amir Johnson. Hopefully they can resign Lowry, Vasquez and Patterson, along with a FA small forward and backup center. This is a team that could be very good in a couple of seasons if they remain intact.
As for the Brooklyn series, we were one shot away from beating a team that almost doubled the Raps payroll, on key addition and we win that series next go around.
