Well I guess it won't be as easy as I thought it was going to be....

Kevin Garnett going to the Celtics for Al Jefferson, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair and Theo Ratliff.

It just got a heck of a lot harder for our Toronto Raptors this year. And every other team in the Eastern Conference. Congrats to the Boston Celtics management and to Danny Ainge. They will be paying more then every team in the league besides the Knicks in luxury tax but does that matter to the fans? The fans want to see winners and the fans in Boston just got the team to beat in the East. Or did they?

Obviously it's better to do any type of season preview closer to the time of the season, but just quickly, let's take a look at how they stack up against the Raps. First thing, the Raps have a lot more depth on the bench but also the starting 5 is very comparable. Kevin Garnett has experience, but besides that slight edge, him and Bosh are equal. Ray Allen is also comparable to Anthony Parker. Ray can heat it up more and take over more on the offensive end, but at the same time, Parker has that edge from a defensive stand point. I would take the Ford/Jose combo over Rondo any day of the week although Pierce is a huge advantage over whoever we put in as small forward. (If it's Garbo, it's not that big of a drop off due to Garbos defense) And of course we have Bargnani murdering Kendrick Perkins.

TJ/Jose Over Rajon
Ray Allen slight edge over Anthony Parker
Paul Pierce over whoever we got at 3
Bosh slight edge over Garnett
Andrei over Perkins
Toronto bench way over Celtics bench

6-2 for the raps.

So Toronto fans, don't worry to much when you hear this talk about Boston now being the top team of the Atlantic division. We already knew it was going to be tougher with Al Jefferson down low working with Pierce and Allan but we knew the Raps had it, and the Raps still have it. It's just going to be more of a struggle. One year ago, the Atlantic was a joke. And now we have a better Knicks team, a MUCH better Celtics team, a better Philly team and a injury free Nets team. I still got my money on the Raps, but it's going to be a fun year for sure.