NBA teams
Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

How real are the Raptors?

NBA, Toronto Raptors

Last week, Kevin Pelton looked at early front-runners in the West through the prism of point differential. Today we're going to do the same thing for the East, where the top of the standings look nothing like what we thought they would. OK, that's not exactly true. We thought there would be a runaway juggernaut in the East, and there is. We were just wrong about the team.

To reiterate what Pelton wrote: At this early juncture of the season, a team's point differential, when evaluated in the context of schedule factors, is a better indicator than won-loss record of what a team will do going forward. Wins and losses generate the buzz. Margin of victory generates the wisdom.

The teams I obliquely referred to in the first paragraph hooked up in a fairly remarkable game Saturday. The Toronto Raptors, the surprise early leader in the East, visited the Cleveland Cavaliers, who we pegged as heavy favorites in the conference just before the season. If you've been fixating on the trials and tribulations of LeBron & Co., you might have missed the great storm blowing north of the border. The Raptors are emerging as the lion of the East, with everyone else settling as kittens.

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