Where will Raptors play next year if border still closed

[C_Money]

You’ve got flights coming in from Cancun, Mexico every day and labelling it as essential travel. LOL f*ck off and let the Raptors play in Toronto.

[Dalek]

Honestly, any fringey small market would love to have the Raptors play in their city creating revenue and buzz for a future NBA franchise. Playing in KC or Louisville would be a dream for those cities.

My pick would be Vegas for the guys. They all work out in that area at Impact and with Rico Hines, they have the Cox Pavilion to practice and the T-Mobile Area where the Knights play. A few players live in LA so they could be close to home. Plus, Canadians would be willing to fly out to Vegas for games even beyond Toronto. Maybe not ideal for travel, but it is a nice place to be.

[TheRealDeal]

Well...Trudeau has basically put talks of any vaccine off until “not early next year” so at this point there’s no way that border gets opened and no way the raps play out the first part at home.

Doesn’t matter where they play to me, but I thought the nba was setting up four smaller bubbles next year.

But if there are no bubbles, If the raptors aren’t playing at home and the rest of the nba is at home, you can forget any free agency working this offseason. Nobody is going to want to basically play the entire season on the road. This ain’t good.

Until Joe Biden.
All those teams have private planes; I am sure something can be arranged from the (private section of the) airport to hotel to the Arena following strict guidelines. With the current tone in the white house, it can certainly not happen right now. There needs to be some federal mandates to contain it. There will be a plan.
We cannot have the Raps playing home games in the US. It should be a no-go. If it means starting our first 15 games on the road until the Biden-Trudeau plan is in the place. So be it!

Trump will likely still be in office when the season begins. The rumor is mid-December, so a decision needs to be made ASAP

There's so much to figure out if it's not going to be Toronto. A lot of people's lives are about to be uprooted...December will be here in no time

Our organization is incredibly tight lipped but at this point I think there's enough smoke for me to believe playing elsewhere is a real possibility. Reports of players not wanting to play in Louisville due to Breonna Taylor shooting and now the KC mayor saying he's working on trying to bring them to the city makes me wonder if the writing's on the wall

[Zeno]

Well...Trudeau has basically put talks of any vaccine off until “not early next year” so at this point there’s no way that border gets opened and no way the raps play out the first part at home.

Doesn’t matter where they play to me, but I thought the nba was setting up four smaller bubbles next year.

But if there are no bubbles, If the raptors aren’t playing at home and the rest of the nba is at home, you can forget any free agency working this offseason. Nobody is going to want to basically play the entire season on the road. This ain’t good.

Until Joe Biden.
All those teams have private planes; I am sure something can be arranged from the (private section of the) airport to hotel to the Arena following strict guidelines. With the current tone in the white house, it can certainly not happen right now. There needs to be some federal mandates to contain it. There will be a plan.
We cannot have the Raps playing home games in the US. It should be a no-go. If it means starting our first 15 games on the road until the Biden-Trudeau plan is in the place. So be it!

Trump will likely still be in office when the season begins. The rumor is mid-December, so a decision needs to be made ASAP

There's so much to figure out if it's not going to be Toronto. A lot of people's lives are about to be uprooted...December will be here in no time

Our organization is incredibly tight lipped but at this point I think there's enough smoke for me to believe playing elsewhere is a real possibility. Reports of players not wanting to play in Louisville due to Breonna Taylor shooting and now the KC mayor saying he's working on trying to bring them to the city makes me wonder if the writing's on the wall

There is likely writing on a bunch of different walls and one of those walls is probably still Toronto. I’m sure Kansas City is another.

[witnessraps]

We will still be playing tons of games against east and atlantic division so i can't see us playing somewhere like vegas, it will be somewhere in the northeast if not toronto

[Vaclac]

We will still be playing tons of games against east and atlantic division so i can't see us playing somewhere like vegas, it will be somewhere in the northeast if not toronto

They should do Manchester, NH. Since there won't be fans anyway they may as well be nice to the players and put them in a no income tax state and NH is the only one in the northeast. SNHU Arena seems to be a reasonably big venue that can accommodate pro basketball games there.

[OAKLEY_2]

You’ve got flights coming in from Cancun, Mexico every day and labelling it as essential travel. LOL f*ck off and let the Raptors play in Toronto.

How can you make plans with cases off the charts in wild west America and 4 provinces that cannot or will not contain this thing? Our Border with America will be closed. If airlines are trying to survive by scheduling Cancun flights that says one thing our border is not closed with Mexico and anyone coming back still has to isolate for 14 days. The B.S. of trying to quickly open up has proven to be an unnecessary bullet to the head. Ford, Legault, Kenney, they all fd up royally. Should have had the Feds take the lead and taken away Doughie's podium of stiffs routine. The show about nothing.

[polo007]

Read on Twitter

[Zeno]

Read on Twitter

For some reason this immediately came to mind.

Watch on YouTube

[Johnny Bball]

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/raptors-still-hopeful-they-can-play-games-in-toronto-next-season-never-had-louisville-as-option-per-report/

Yeah apparently Louisville wasn’t a thing and that was a bs report, and Louisville approached the Raptors but discussions didn’t get far. This is probably already posted but just in case.

[Osiris]

what this thing about Mahomes wanting the Raps in KC City, Missouri?!?

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

<<--------------------------------------------
<<--------------------------------------------

Watch on YouTube

<<--------------------------------------------
<<--------------------------------------------

[Zeno]

Spoiler:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/raptors-still-hopeful-they-can-play-games-in-toronto-next-season-never-had-louisville-as-option-per-report/

Yeah apparently Louisville wasn’t a thing and that was a bs report, and Louisville approached the Raptors but discussions didn’t get far. This is probably already posted but just in case.

This is all based on Lewenberg which I’m not suggesting isn’t accurate. Just saying, this is the sad state of reporting these days.
It also has Gasol as being signed in Spain presented as fact though it is basically just a widely accepted assumption.

[WaltFrazier]

We will still be playing tons of games against east and atlantic division so i can't see us playing somewhere like vegas, it will be somewhere in the northeast if not toronto

Yeah even KC is kind of too far west. Buffalo makes the most sense geographically, but it's so damn cold.

If this was a few years ago, I'd be worried that a temporary move to the US would become permanent, as in losing the team like Vancouver did. But we are too well-established now.

But if there was a big time free agent on the market this off season instead of a year away, it would be really hard for the Raps to recruit given the uncertainty.

[WaltFrazier]

We will still be playing tons of games against east and atlantic division so i can't see us playing somewhere like vegas, it will be somewhere in the northeast if not toronto

They should do Manchester, NH. Since there won't be fans anyway they may as well be nice to the players and put them in a no income tax state and NH is the only one in the northeast. SNHU Arena seems to be a reasonably big venue that can accommodate pro basketball games there.

Interesting angle, the taxes. If the Raps played say, the first half of the season in a US city, would the players not have to pay Canadian taxes during that time?

[Johnny Bball]

Spoiler:

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/raptors-still-hopeful-they-can-play-games-in-toronto-next-season-never-had-louisville-as-option-per-report/

Yeah apparently Louisville wasn’t a thing and that was a bs report, and Louisville approached the Raptors but discussions didn’t get far. This is probably already posted but just in case.

This is all based on Lewenberg which I’m not suggesting isn’t accurate. Just saying, this is the sad state of reporting these days.
It also has Gasol as being signed in Spain presented as fact though it is basically just a widely accepted assumption.

Yeah wasn't sure either or if the Original source of Louisville wasn't Lewenberg in the first place.

[Vaclac]

We will still be playing tons of games against east and atlantic division so i can't see us playing somewhere like vegas, it will be somewhere in the northeast if not toronto

They should do Manchester, NH. Since there won't be fans anyway they may as well be nice to the players and put them in a no income tax state and NH is the only one in the northeast. SNHU Arena seems to be a reasonably big venue that can accommodate pro basketball games there.

Interesting angle, the taxes. If the Raps played say, the first half of the season in a US city, would the players not have to pay Canadian taxes during that time?

No, my understanding is that they would not. I think the tax rules are that you pay in proportion to the amount of time you work in each state/country. So even during a regular season they pay taxes as if they only work in Canada half the time and then they pay bits and pieces of taxes to all the US states they play in while on the road. You can't really control having to play games in other states with high taxes, but lowering the tax associated with the half of games played at home seems like a worthwhile goal.

[radeonboy]

Wherever they play outside of Toronto we can all agree it will be a serious downgrade than playing in Toronto.

[MixxSRC]

Read on Twitter

[Ado05]

You would think Canada would be able to figure out some sort of rapid testing that would allow teams to enter the country. Guess not.

[DIEHARD_005]

Read on Twitter

lol, that was pretty good. But I'm sure some crazy Murrican saw the French and started yelling about KC's mayor embracing Arabic and Sharia law.... :|