With East improving, Toronto club under no illusions it will automatically reach last season’s levels.
Funny thing, expectations.
They are often external and so much so in the case of this year’s Toronto Raptors, who began the real work of training camp Tuesday in Vancouver weighed down by the goals set for them by others.
They know what the whispers are, that they have to at least match last year’s magical run to the NBA’s Eastern Conference final, that the 56-win regular season is a benchmark many will expect them to match, that the season will somehow be a failure if there isn’t some sort of progression from a year ago.