Not gonna lie, before this week I had literally never met a Toronto Raptors fan in my life. I had seen people walking around with Vince Carter throwbacks and occasionally someone would pick the Kyle Lowry-DeMar DeRozan squads in NBA 2K. But outside of that the Raptors lived in my brain as just another victim of LeBron James’ Eastern Conference domination. Nobody I knew in Oakland was a Raptors fan.
That changed over the span of 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday before Game 1. I had four interviews with Toronto media; my first genuine conversations with Raptors supporters.