Trash-talk Toronto Raptors: The ESPN rankings got it wrong

Welcome back to another edition of Trash-talk Toronto Raptors: A weekly gossip column! Here we discuss everything that happened with the Toronto Raptors except… basketball.

Look, guys, I can talk about basketball. In fact, it has become increasingly difficult to write this column without mentioning the fact that the Toronto Raptors currently stand tied for second place in the Eastern Conference with a 12-4 record. Again, the Toronto Raptors — the team that was supposed to flop in their title defense — are standing in second place.

I could point out the fact that they have the fourth-best net rating at plus-7.4, but again, this isn’t a place to talk about basketball. My colleagues have done their due diligence by keeping track of grades, top-five performances, and one thing we can learn from each game over the course of any given week.

In this column, you can throw that math out the window. We want to discuss all the hullabaloo, chicanery, and humor that we can find that seeps onto the internet. In previous columns, we’ve uncovered secrets through Serge Ibaka’s cooking show How Hungry Are You? discussed the ringless former Raptors, and debated the concept that Drake made himself a personalized championship ring.

Of course, we always want you, as readers, to feel involved. If you’re perusing the Twitter-sphere, attending games, or just keeping track of hilarity throughout the season, then please feel free to tag or send a direct message to @RaptorsRapture or @HughesWithMe on Twitter, so we can include a shout out for the upcoming column.

In this week’s column, we are going to discuss the ESPN rankings that excluded the Toronto Raptors in the top ten, Nick Nurse winning another coach’s challenge, and, finally, we’re actually going to take a step away from the Toronto Raptors so we can discuss our collective schadenfreude as Richard Jefferson and the New York Knicks feud over whether or not he was offered a contract prior to retirement.

Without further ado, onto this week’s edition of Trash-talk!