Toronto Raptors Season Update

The Toronto Raptors are a professional basketball team, which is based in Toronto, Ontario. They are the only National Basketball Association (NBA) non-American club. The team’ owner is Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. The Toronto Raptors current head coach is Sam Mitchell, their home arena is the Air Canada Center.

Currently, the Toronto Raptors have very devoted, but success-starved fans. Having only one playoff series victory in their long history, the Toronto Raptors continue to attract many spectators to their games. The Toronto Raptors is the only team, which was granted permission to have their own TV Station so that they could broadcast games nationally. This can be explained by the fact that they are Canadians, and are the country’s star team loved by the whole nation. The team has gone through some difficult times especially after trading away Vince Carter. The team was determined to do something to change the situation, and decided to fire General Manager Rob Babcock. The latter was replaced by Wayne Embry at the end of January 2006. At the end of the following month, the team named the former Phoenix Suns President and GM Bryan Colangelo the President and General Manager of the Toronto Raptors. In fact, his hiring gave hope to many fans and finally led to record season ticket renewal rates (91%).

The Toronto Raptors used their first overall pick in June 2006 to choose Italian prodigy Andrea Bargnani. He became the first European drafted number one overall. Later, the Toronto Raptors hired Benetton Treviso to be the team’s General Manager and European executive guru Maurizio Gherardini as the club’s vice president and the assistant general manager. In June, Colangelo traded the 2006 NBA Rookie of the Year Charlie Villanueva to the Milwaukee Bucks for TJ Ford. In July the Toronto Raptors acquired Anthony Parker from the Maccabi Tel Aviv, and later picked John Salmons from the Philadelphia 76ers, though Salmons scraped the agreement and did not join the Toronto Raptors. Fred Jones signed to a three-year contract worth $11 million.
For the 2006-2007 season the Toronto Raptors decided to change their color style and uniforms. The original dinosaur logo was eliminated in favor of the new "paw-print" logo. The purple elements of the team jerseys were also removed to become red. This was part of a recent campaign to promote the Raptors as a "Canada's team".

The game of October 15, 2006, with its 119 points by the Toronto Raptors marks the third highest total during a preseason game in franchise history. On October 27, 2006, the pre-season was finished with 7-1, which is the best record in the league, as well as a franchise record. The team’s franchise, also announced the "Nicholson seats" (two pairs of seats near the scorers table) that cost $1500 per game because of their proximity to the team and the basketball court. Recently several Toronto Raptors players set some individual records. For instance, Charlie Villanueva, set a new franchise record for most points scored by a rookie – 48 (during the game versus Milwaukee on March 26, 2006). Mike James established a record for most consecutive free throws without a miss in one game by shooting 18 of 18.

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