The 2008-09 schedule, released yesterday, revealed that six-time all-star Jermaine O’Neal will make his Raptors debut Oct. 29 in Philadelphia, when Toronto opens its season against the 76ers and their new elite big man, Elton Brand.
The Raptors will kick off the home portion of their campaign on Halloween, against the revamped Golden State Warriors.
Like in previous years, the Raptors will be in action most Fridays and Sundays (27 of the club’s 41 home dates fall on those days).
Meanwhile, primarily thanks to the Maple Leafs, the Raptors do not have any Saturday home dates and play only five times on that day all season.
The schedule starts off rather unkindly for the Raptors, who will have played 18 games on the road by the time December is over and play 48 times from opening night to January. But the squad should be rested for the playoffs since it plays only 34 more times over the final three months of the regular season.
Guard T.J. Ford, who was traded to the Indiana Pacers for O’Neal, makes his ACC return Dec. 10.
Unlike in years past when the Raptors have had two long western trips, Toronto will head west three times, twice with stopovers in the south – Nov. 30 to Dec. 5 (vs. the L.A. Lakers, Denver and Utah); the aforementioned late December trip (vs. Oklahoma City, San Antonio, the L.A. Clippers, Sacramento, Portland and Golden State); and Feb. 27-March 3 (vs. Phoenix, Dallas and Houston). Over the last five seasons, the Raptors have gone an abysmal 9-36 in games played in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, including a 1-8 record last year.
This afternoon the Toronto Raptors announced their 2008-09 schedule on their official website and I was sent an email from their media relations team with some additional schedule notes. Since I couldn’t find these notes on their official site and I thought Raptors fans would enjoy a deeper look into the upcoming season, I’ve broken down some of the key points here for you. Enjoy!
So the schedule is out, and at first glance it looks like we will know what this team is made of Come November 1st in Milwaukee. IMHO, the Raptors should go 9-5, which will go a long way to setting a tone for the rest of the season, and maybe get them 50 wins. As we all know, the last couple seasons, the Raptors haven’t been so quick out of the gate, and that has cost them.
Interesting to see that the Raptors have Atlanta, Charlotte and Miami twice each (home and home) in the first month. I have all 6 of those games as wins. In fact, I will go so for as to say that IF this is a 50 win team, they HAVE to win those games. Again, IMHO, going 5-1 over those 6 games is unacceptable, and will only fuel the fire that BryCo didn’t make the right decisions again this offseason.
When you break down the schedule the key point that will stick out is Dec 19th- 29th. In that stretch the Raptors will be on the road for 6 straight starting in Oaklahoma City. Another thing of note is the Raptors should have a nice road to the end of the season. After March 15th there is not a lot of tough challenges for the Raptors. It is not unlike the schedules of the past few seasons.
Overall, it’s not a bad sked for the Raps … as long as they can get through a GRUELING first two months of the season. Toronto will play 18 of its 41 road games BEFORE the new year. If they can survive that stretch, the ‘09 portion of the season may be a lot easier with a ton of home games and very few long flights.
We have been living in the Olympic Village for a few days now and I would like to share my impressions with you. We have a few apartments that we share between the 12 players and we are surrounded by the other Spanish athletes. We are all together and the environment is excellent. The Village is not bad, I would even say that I like it better than where we stayed in Athens 4 years ago. Evidently it is a type of camp very different from the European and NBA teams. I think that the only people that are missing are the USA basketball team. Curiously, there are the other North American athletes but not our basketball colleagues.
We landed in Shangai a few days ago where we spent our first 24-hours, the city is spectacular, we were able to take a walk around the city on the first day. Later we traveled to Beijing and we began practicing and fulfilling our publicity obligations. For example, today some of us have responded to the presentation that Li Ning, sponsor of the FEB, made for the Olympics.
I hope to “blog” every few days and comment on our new experiences, and my perception of the tournament, I hope that you enjoy it.
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I think it would be hilarious if some players made a comment about Tibet or protested Tianomon (sp) Square and got expelled from the country.
What a controversy it would stir.
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Tiananmen.
I wonder how China would handle that, now that the whole world is watching. I don’t think they’d get away with Tiananmen in this day and age, what with cellphone cameras and Youtube. Would they be able to run over an athlete with a tank? Open fire with machine guns over the Olympic Village, killing all Olympians in a matter of minutes, and then clean up all the mess and the just go about your business like nothing happened?
Probably not.