Toronto Raptors not taking visiting Real Madrid lightly as they begin preseason schedule – NBA News
As the Toronto Raptors get ready to play Real Madrid in an exhibition game here at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, they know that they cannot take international clubs lightly anymore, as many of them have made tremendous progress over the past few years to the point where the gap between NBA teams and European clubs is not so great anymore. The Raptors have faced off with non NBA clubs on seven occasions, and have lost two of those games including a previous fixture in 2007 with Real Madrid.
“Those days are long gone. Just look at the Olympics. Look how good those teams are just because the NBA has done such a good job of filtering in European players, those guys have taken the game back to their country, the coaching has got much better,” said Dwane Casey, head coach of the Toronto Raptors.
Madrid is already boasting former NBA players in Rudy Fernandez and Sergio Rodriguez, as well as future NBA prospects like Nikola Mirotic and Sergio Llull. They are also holding the advantage of being in playing form at the moment, as the Spanish SuperCup finished only two weeks ago. The Raptors, on the other hand, have just started their training camp a week ago and have not played a game since the last NBA season.
“They’re (Madrid) going to be on level 10 and we’re probably at five or six or something like that. They’re at a different level, and our guys are still kind of in training camp mode. But we want to come out and compete,” added Casey.
The Raptors will play against Madrid without Kyle Lowry or Jonas Valanciunas. Jonas is yet to be cleared by the team doctors for full contact, where as Lowry has been labelled day to day with a leg injury. The two stars will anxiously be waiting to make their on-court debut for the Raptors, but will be missing out on the opportunity to get some rust off in the exhibition game against Real Madrid. Casey said that he would rather be cautious with his star point guard in Lowry than risk aggravating his injury or sidelining him for even a greater amount of time.
Tags: