Come On People, Think About It!

Come on people, think about it! The Raptors not making or barely making the playoffs? Are you completely out of your collective minds?

I don't know where some people are getting this, (aside from years of disappointment and the fact that its a "Canadian" team) but if you have any scouting ability whatsoever, its pretty much not possible for the Raptors to not make the playoffs. I have seen teams that are clearly not as good as the Raptors in terms of both depth and overall player quality put ahead of the Raptors in predictions for final standings and playoff positions.

Now, where do I think the Raptors are going to finish? Well, taking into account early troubles meshing and inevitable injury issues (every team gets them) I am going to confidently say 5th with a record of 48-34. In a perfect world (no meshing issues, top performances from all the starters and 2nd line and only a few, mild injuries) I would say 52-30 and 4th place. Even in a worst case scenario situation, with serious and long term meshing issues (won't happen) and a serious injury to Bosh and another starter (also won't happen) I still see them as making the playoffs at about 43-39 in 6th place simply because of their (skilled) depth.

Essentially, the Raptors won't seriously compete with Boston or Cleveland, they might (but probably won't) be able to with Orlando (i think they have gotten worse even with Vince) and they will definitely compete for 4th place with Washington and Atlanta (Toronto, Washington and Atlanta will fit into 4th, 5th and 6th in some order and overall I think Toronto is better than either of those teams). After 6th place, none of the teams competing for 7th and 8th are even remotely as good as the Raptors unless the Raptors experienced a worst case scenario situation.

So here are my final standings predictions for the 2009-10 season:

1. Cleveland 2. Boston 3. Orlando 4. Toronto 5. Washington 6. Atlanta 7. Miami 8. Detroit.

That's all for now folks!