Welcome to the Daily Ding on the Athletic NBA podcast feed. My name is Jared Weiss. I am joined by Moe DeKeele Mo. Let's talk about the teams that we think are the most underrated heading into the NBA season. I assume you've got one, considering we got 30 to pick from.

So what's your first one?

My very first one, Jared, is the Toronto Raptors.

I think everybody is kind of just assuming they're just going to be very average

and probably struggle to even make the playing game,

whereas I look at them going this past season was such an aberration for them,

more so than anybody else.

They were the only team that played all 72 games on the road.

They had to move to Tampa Bay, Jared.

Of all places.

But they didn't get to play at home, right? Like there was no home games for them. They were on the road. And it wasn't something of like, hey, this is planned. You have three months to plan for this. It was literally like, hey, we're starting the season. And hey, you guys up north, yeah, you need to come down to florida you know and that's a very very easy transition Canada to florida i mean Toronto is basically the Tampa the northeuse of

the continent right so okay yeah i i definitely understand the logic of i mean how insanely hard is it just, not just have to play in home road arenas and not have the, just get 41 games out of the year where you have the benefit of your home fans, but the grind of having to be on the road that entire time and not just having those weeks when you're at home, which probably would have sucked because they would have been on the road away from everybody. But so, yeah, that probably will lead to a boon. But what about the roster itself? I mean, how do you feel comfortable with the way this roster is set up right now to be like a legit playoff team? Yeah, no, when I look at this team and that was like the next point, besides the weird situation in that stuff, I mean, Pascal Seaccombe

did not have a good year.

Like I think he's poised team and that was like the next point besides the the the weird situation and that stuff i mean

Pascal siakum did not have a good year like i think he's poised for a big bounce back year i think

fred van vleet is always just reliable you know i think you're in a situation when you're

looking at this team you know ojana nob I think, ready to take even another step forward.

They traded Norman Powell, picked up Gary Trent Jr., re-signed him.

I thought he was a good pickup for them.

I think just in general, they have a lot of good pieces, and they have Goran Dragich,

who it's kind of unclear if he wants to come to Toronto and play for them or not.

I know there was rumblings

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