I’m personally surprised at the Raptor’s success.

They are a fun squad to watch, but I really didn’t think they’d be this good.

Incredible team through 3 quarters last year

Kind of sad for Barrett to be out he has been a big part of it.

Firing Masai was the biggest mistake in Raptors history

Fuck Ed Rogers & Pelley

Whatever team hires Masai is going to be very good

Yeah, people really were not aware of how blatant we were tanking down the stretch last year. Despite our best efforts we still wnet like 14-14 to finish the season, solely because we had 3+ games against multiple other tanking teams who all out tanked us(also Orl managed to choke back to back games against us). 

The first half of the season was legit ethical tanking by losing against all of the good teams in mostly close affairs while we dealt with injuries. The second half of the season we were benching Shead and running point Ochai to purposely lose games(and sometimes failed at that). 

Poeltl showing his quality as usual. Underrated player

I was one in the pessimistic group with this team, I still thought Barnes was awesome but I didn’t expect Ingram to buy in and play with full effort the way he has so easily. It really does just take leaving New Orleans to fix people though, I underestimate how much voodoo is in that franchise

Yeah they had a lot of guys last year and this year who were good to decent, just having them healthy and making sure the pieces fit seemed to be the problem. This year they’ve been healthy and had time to figure out the roster. Certainly a bit better than expected of course similar to the pistons.

The heat’s hot start on the other hand I didn’t see coming, especially the pace and offense the way it has been. Idk how long it’ll last their performance seems less sustainable than the other two, on paper the roster doesn’t look that good. Tho I don’t know enough or watch them enough to count them out or any of that just think it’s an impressive revamp without a large change in talent without herro as well, spolstra gonna spolstra.

Yeah Pistons should have been expected to be a top 4 seed at worst, just based on their position last year and the Celtics and Pacers being down with injuries. 

I thought the Raps should be the 6 seed before the season, but did not see this from Miami at all. Tbf, unless you were really tuned into Miami this offseason, their revamped offense was a nice surprise for most people. 

Bit surprised to not see Cleveland in the top 2 after last year imo

I’m really loving Miami’s New offense, it’s really fun to watch, and looking at the result pretty effective as well.

What’s crazy is that in 3 weeks it could be a totally different top 3, the good teams in the east are packed like sardines

The heat going from one of the slowest, more boring teams to a fast, very fun watch has been very appreciated

Lebron wouldn’t exactly dominate regular season he’d just dick them down in the playoffs and give them false hope regular season when teams would get first seed

He got first seed in Cleveland like once i think

Not LeBron like dominance obviously but the Celtics in this decade reached 4 Conference Finals in 5 years, 2 Finals, a title, and averaged 60 wins in the last 3 years under Mazzulla.

Biased but that’s pretty fucking good.

Lets show boston some respect my friend, ECF 6 of the last 9 years.. A rookie tatum took lebron to game 7, injuries cost them a championship in 22, Championship, Probably would have gotten to the finals again last year if healthy, and this year in the last week they have beaten the Cavs knicks and Pistons without a top 5 player in tatum..

I feel like Boston has been that, they’ve been right there every year since 2018 where without Hayward and kyrie they came within a shot of a finals appearance, with the only exceptions being 2019 and 21. Not LeBron level but they’ve been contenders and one of the best teams in the league on paper consistently it’s just not always materialized that’s how most finals windows are you win one year but generally fall short either due to injury or falling short to a similarly good team ie bucks, heat,

Celtics/Heat for a bit

Celtics maybe

What? The Celtics have the most wins in the league the last 6 seasons. Most conference appearances and two finals.

Celtics is the one, they just lost JT and decided to take a year to reset.

Slowly starting to not being slept on anymore. 3 wins in the past week against the pistons, cavaliers, and now the Knicks. All depends on how Tatum can look if he does return and these young kids if they can continue to get better into the season and then show things in the playoffs

They are legit scary

If Tatum somehow came back for the playoffs they could absolutely win the East but not sure how realistic that is 

In the East only really 

West feels a lot more dominated by the top few teams especially the top 1

I hate the Heat. But respect. Bam somehow is always one of the most underrated players in the league. He means so much in the W/L column.

Legit question, would a Raptors/OKC finals leave Canada split on which team to root for? On one side you have the sole Canadian team in the NBA, but on the other you have the best Canadian basketball player in the world going for a back-to-back championship.

They say this every year about the Heat lol…. I know I’m a bias fan but I expected the Heat to be at the top

I hate Miami but Spo has earned that respect. Kept Miami competitive post LeBron with a dump of a roster

How long does the early season last? Quarter of the season is already done.

This reddit post from 2017 always gives me a chuckle and demonstrates your point pretty well. Magic ended up 25-57 that year and Grizzlies ended up 22-60. Although to be fair they had both fallen off by December.

We’re going to see a lot of movement in the standings between now and the end of the season. I very much doubt that the Pistons will have the 2nd best record in the league haha

How are they the best of the three when you didn’t put them in the three lol

Raps opened at 31.5 fully healthy lmaoooo

Due to the ball being wedged in the rim 😭

Or on the flip side, all 3 could maybe make an ECF run lol

You liked watching 100 free throws a game having embiid and harden on the same team?

Why?

At one point last season we were like 12-17, even started the season 2-5, once January came we played like a top team in the league and finished like 44-38 and could’ve won more then 44 if we didn’t start resting guys at the end.

Really just a continuation of what we were doing since January. We definitely earned it

I mean the 1st seed in the East chokes almost every year recently lol it’s like a curse 

2024 Boston are the main exception and they were by far the most complete team the East has had in the 2020s