NBA JAM: WE LOVE YOU, RAPTORS

We're not total hoopheads, but professional basketball has a place on our sports shelf besides the NHL, baseball (that's mostly Neate), soccer (that's mostly a Neil thing, but Neate is learning fast) and of course, the NFL, the self-proclaimed alpha and omega of the sports world.

So while we're not experts and can never hope to match Scott Carefoot of RaptorBlog, we have accepted the Raptors into our lives as our NBA lord and saviour. That makes us hopeless romantics and true believers in a world desperately short on both, so we've got that goin' for us, which is nice.

Many people have scoffed at the Raptors since that first game back in 1995, but not us. We're realistic about this organization -- which is to say, at least one of us believes they'll never go anywhere so long as Sam Mitchell is coaching -- but we believe in Raptors basketball, at least in our ironic detachment kind of way.

We joke about this team as much as anyone, but if you're some dilettante sports liker who mostly only pays attention to, say, the NHL and needs basic basketball rules and strategy explained to you, don't try to tell us about the Raptors. Or else you will be punched in the nose -- metaphorically speaking for Neate, although you never can be too sure with Neil.

New general manager Bryan Colangelo has come in from Phoenix to remake this team over, and they've already had an undefeated pre-season. Rome wasn't built in a day, but having a 20-year-old phenom from Italy in Andrea Bargnani sure helps.

One of these years, the Raptors will win the whole schebang-a-bang, and there will be a huge championship parade down Yonge St., and we'll drink and dance with one hand free, and we'll smile so knowingly; the kind of smile that comes from knowing we were there for the dark days and all the trendy T-Dot types around us that didn't even start to fill the lower bowl at the ACC until the second round of the playoffs still don't understand the 3-second rule.

So yes, we do have a series of NBA team capsules -- wittily titled "NBA Jam" -- for this week. Knock on wood, the good Lord willin', we'll have all 30 teams --- there are 30, right? --previewed by the time the regular season tips off Oct. 31.

The Southeast and Southwest divisions will be previewed first, followed by the Atlantic and Pacific. That leaves the Central and Northwest, which means we can save the best for the last -- our Toronto Raptors.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.