VIDEO: Raptors debuted 20 years ago today
Twenty years ago today, the NBA welcomed professional basketball back to the nation that birthed the game and hosted the league's first ever contest (Huskies-Knickerbockers, 1947), with the debuts of the expansion Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies.
The basketball world was a different place at the time.
The Hakeem Olajuwon-led Houston Rockets were coming off back-to-back championships, Michael Jordan was only a three-time champion, and Kevin Garnett was making his own NBA debut.
The Raptors, meanwhile, were playing in a baseball stadium, future Global Ambassador Drake was simply known as 9-year-old Aubrey Graham (and was still starting from the bottom), and The Raptor himself, now one of the NBA's - and the sports world's - most famous mascots, was literally hatching out of an egg at center court.
Here's what the Toronto Star looked like following Toronto's franchise-opening win over the New Jersey Nets in front of 33,306 fans:
Check out the Toronto Star's front page after the @Raptors first game in 1995 (via @SmithRaps) pic.twitter.com/xBBC7ZjvEa
— J.E. Skeets (@jeskeets) November 3, 2015
Now in their 21st season, the Raptors have cultivated one of the Association's most devoted and rabid fanbases, but ultimate success has eluded the NBA's lone remaining Canadian franchise. The team has yet to advance past the second round of the postseason, has yet to win a best-of-seven series, and has never cracked the 50-win barrier.
The Grizzlies, of course, moved to Memphis before becoming a perennial second-tier contender out West. During their six years in Vancouver, the team's best showing was a 23-win performance in 2000-01.