I consider the news equally good and bad. I don't think there's any doubt that Toronto's one of the better sports markets in North America, and that basketball has a strong foothold here. Occaisonally you see some ignorant media personality talk down to our franchise, because of our location, but the fact is that we're probably one of the more stable franchises in the league. I consider this season to be the most frustratingly difficult to watch since '04, and yet we're still right up there in attendance. Our definition of success has become a first round win, and we consistently place up there. But the other side, of course, is that these numbers continue to enforce the status quo for an organization that desperately need the opposite. The fact is that MLSE is probably one of the more lucrative ownership groups in the NBA, essentially the equivalent of the Cowboys or Yankees, and yet they're still among the stingiest. Our support is both showing the league how much of a market we have, and preventing any management types from working with a sense of urgency.
Raptors are really 15th. You can't penalize teams like Boston because their arena is smaller than Toronto's. There are 5 teams that sell out every night: Portland, Boston, Phx, Dallas and Detroit. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/attendance?sort=home_pct&year=2009&seasonType=2
Welcome to Knickerbocker World. It was actually worse for us. Since it's New York, prices are ridiculous, yet people still go to games. It was especially bad in 2005-06: 23 wins, no draft pick, highest payroll in the league. Management was still lenient towards Isiah.
