Shortly after news broke this morning that the Canadian federal government had denied the Toronto Raptors’ request to play their 2020-21 home games in Toronto, team president Masai Ujiri confirmed that the team would start the season in Tampa, Florida in an official statement:
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Tampa had been one of the frontrunners to be Toronto’s temporary home should Canada not be amenable to having the Raptors and their competition regularly cross the border.
It doesn’t seem like an ideal location — Tampa, obviously, is a long way from Toronto and from the team’s Atlantic Division competition (though there has been loose talk of temporarily having them swap division places with, say, the Wizards).