Quote:
Originally Posted by GernB
Your point about Toronto support for the Raptors is well taken also. Although they're drawing well, I don't believe that there's any great groundswell of support, any more than that Torontonians suddenly became great baseball fans last fall. A winning team in an American league is simply the place to be, and the Raptors are winning.
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You don't have a clue what you're talking about. Toronto has turned into a second-tier basketball talent factory (first tier being New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, North Carolina and Florida, obviously) in the last decade because of the groundswell of Raptor fandom created by the presence of Vince Carter back in the last decade. Basketball is legitimately part of Toronto's DNA now.
And you can't blame people in the city for getting excited about the Raptors. Toronto has had no championships since 1993, and before that it was 1967. People are starved for some sporting success. Sure, the fondest wish would be for the Leafs to do something, anything, but, well...
And you can't blame people for getting excited about something that's so close to being the best in the world, which is what the Raptors are now. They are now the fourth best basketball team in the world, and two of their players are actually from the city (though one of them is pretty much a bust, and doesn't play).
Who wouldn't be ecstatic about that?
Right now Philadelphia has the worst team in the league, and the crowds are abysmal, but nobody is saying that Philadelphia isn't a basketball hotbed. That's where Kyle Lowry grew up, after all.