Kelly: Raptors, Sixers blowout a tale of two teams This is the first time in their history the Toronto Raptors have held the sole lead in the NBA's Eastern Conference. After absolutely crushing the abysmal Philadelphia 76ers, they're 6-1. By the end of their current homestand, they could be 10-2 or 9-3. That's neither a best nor worst case. It's just a case. So, by the third week in November, this team will already have functionally qualified for the playoffs. The Toronto Raptors being that good makes you question many other assumptions in your life - like, say, the Laws of Thermodynamics or gravity. It's awfully early, but you'd still like someone in the organization to do a little happy dance. No dice. It's great for the players to see that. But it's not the most important thing right now. The most important thing is developing a consistent personality," said coach Dwane Casey. In an effort to express that personality, Casey has developed a series of horse-racing analogies. A few days ago, it was Seabiscuit (i.e. a slow starter). Then, after an opening sprint against Washington, it was Secretariat (i.e. a fast starter). Now it's Bold Ruler, best remembered as a stud. So ... draw your own conclusions. On Sunday, they played the worst team in the NBA, and quite possibly, the worst team in all of sports. Do you have a beer-league team at work? A bunch of friends, every one of them well into the middle-age slide? Usually only practise 10 minutes before games? Do you usually draw those mutants from Maintenance, most of whom you are pretty sure are ringers? Right, well, you're still better than the 76ers. The 76ers are an exaggerated version of Raptors squads past. The key difference - they were purpose-built to lose. Fielding a roster of promising greenhorns and D-League scrubs, they're doing a hell of a job at it. This is no longer an NBA team. It's a human study into the long-term effects of tanking. To their credit, they are triers. Most of their trying involves taking hopeless fouls and missing free throws. They were down 19 early, at which point the Raptors engaged their autopilot. They haven't had the opportunity to test that much this year, so it's good news to find out it still works. It finished 120-88. Standouts for the Raptors: Everyone. Standouts for the 76ers: the team psychologist, his therapist and everyone in their lives who has to listen to them talk about basketball. The 76ers leave Toronto having lost their first seven games. They'll probably win 10 or so during this season. They may not get the first overall pick, but karmically, it should be theirs. It's still fun to imagine the 76ers becoming the inverse of "72 Dolphins - mythically awful. Of all the world's cities, only Philadelphia could properly absorb that sort of psychological scarring. We'd feel really sorry for them, if we hadn't been them for most of 20 years. As such, we live in a very comfortable combination of commiseration and smug superiority. That feeling won't last. Two weeks into the regular season, we still have no real idea what this Toronto team is all about. They're winning, but it rarely looks easy (Sunday night being a not-so-notable exception). The offence is exciting, but choppy. The defence is sporadic, and occasionally non-existent. The whole works, but the parts are a mess. The off-season sell-line on this team was that it made sense to keep them together - the value of familiarity over minor, speculative improvements in talent. They don't look like that sort of team. They look like they're trying to figure each other out. Thus far, the Raptors braintrust doesn't have the team they expected. Instead, they have the team they want. Going into Sunday, the combined record of Raptors opponents this year was 17-26. Eventually, they'll have to start playing teams from the West, and the few in the East who are any good. There are two ways that can go. First, the lethargic starts and mid-game brownouts begin showing in the results. That team still makes the playoffs with a decent shot, but it's not much better than the one we'd seen last year. Given current expectations (shortly to break atmosphere and go into low-Earth orbit), that team would be a pretty huge downer. Second, they figure out. If that happens (and stay healthy - something they've been scary good at), this Raptors squad is capable of just about anything. It is the luxury of great teams that they are permitted to view the regular season as a whole, leading them into the real season. Toronto's never tasted that good life. They've lived day-to-day through their entire history. They're going to have that chance soon. We're well off the basketball map, people. We are sailing in strange waters. Somebody should call San Antonio and ask to borrow their depth charts. This isn't yet a great team. But it suddenly has that potential.