Title: 15 bold Raptors predictions for the 2020-21 season
Date: December 18, 2020
Original Source: The Athletic
Synopsis: In my latest for The Athletic Toronto, I made my 15 annual bold predictions for the Raptors’ season ahead.
Predicting the eventual winner of the NBA championship is not bold. Everyone does it, and the NBA environment narrows down the choices for you every year. The Most Valuable Player? Please, we know it’s one of maybe five guys. Win totals? Take it to the oddsmakers and earn some money if you feel that strongly.
No, bold is a designation saved for those willing to get in the weeds, sort through the details and be wrong an awful lot. And if an annual column that is a lot of fun to write, gets into some miniutiae and is sure to leave me awash in self-loathing at some point in the next year sounds extremely on-brand for me, well, yeah, here we are. I love doing these bold predictions, whether they be for fantasy baseball back in my FanGraphs time or as a yearly pseudo-preview for the Raptors.
The idea is, weirdly, to get only a few of these right. Too many correct and you obviously weren’t bold enough. Too few, you’re a dummy. Last year, we mostly struck that balance, allowing for some pandemic-related inconclusives. And as always, I try to skew positive in these predictions, because it’s a bit more fun and, I think, more pragmatic for working through the storylines for the year ahead.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 