Raptors White Out or Black Out

Team White WINS, TEAM WHITE WINS!!! I have to say yesterday, I was really missing the fact that I am not able to be at training camp this year. But what can you do. Vancouver is just not in the Dino Nation Blog's budget. Jay Satur from Raptors.com was there and filed a report on the particulars. I don't think you can take much of anything from an inter squad game but they are fun. They have a half Harlem Globetrotters and have semi serious feel to them. The most important thing of all these pre-season games and events is that everyone remains healthy. Just look back to last season and Reggie Evans injury in a pre-season game for proof of that. Evans never really got back on track and missed half the season.

So TSN in an attempt to obviously make me look bad, is in fact broadcasting the Suns and Raptors on Wednesday, on the main TSN as well. That being said it is still a shame that a lot of people have been shut out by the evolution of Sportsnet 1 and TSN 2 from Raptor games. I personally see it as a bad move for the Raptors. When you are a good team you can afford these type of things. When you are a team that is not expected to do well you need all the exposure you can get. Whatever TSN or Rogers cares to say the fact is Raptor fans and Jays fans have become casualties of their stupid pointless completive nature with each other. I spent some time at TSN, so it is not like I say this without any personal knowledge. Since my time there the childish competition between the two networks has only increased. What also has increased is there NHL coverage which buries basketball further and further into the background. They can say all they like they do this to provide more coverage of events but it is more about making money and to them that means more hockey. If MLSE was serious and wanted to put an end to this they could do it. Just the threat of a couple Leaf games being moved to Leafs TV would get them whatever they wanted in terms of Raptor scheduling. Eventually this like TSN2 will sort out for majority of people but while some will forget this in time...I won't.

Linas Kleiza will not be confused with Hedo Turkoglu on Wednesday. He is playing hard and led all scorers in that inter-squad scrimmage. Last year Hedo in that game in Ottawa had a seat next to Chris Bosh in street clothes watching. While I have not been as high on Kleiza as most, when it comes to effort and energy he will never have an issue with that.

The only other thing I want to point out for this Monday is about Demar DeRozan. He is really looking the part as the future face of the franchise isn't he? I remember interviewing him last season and he was really nice but his answers were short and he was not as polished. This year he seems to have more to say and says it with the confidence you gain from a year of guys like me asking him questions all the time. The big question is can the on court swag match the off court swag. That will be one of the big things I will be watching this pre-season.

Going to try to catch up with Matt Devlin in Vancouver sometime between now and Wednesday and get his impressions of what has been going on in Vancouver. Looking forward to that.