Season Opens With Fire with Chef Bargnani

My season opener observations:

• First of all - how sizzling is that picture? Bargnani looks like he's just throwing down that dunk in DISGUST..disgust that anybody would try to even challenge that.

• For all the talk of the bad preseason, the Raps looked like an NBA ready team (conditioning and all that jazz).
  
• The crowd was bananas - no, apeshit - and it was great to see. I could just feel the buzz watching from my television set. I went to a preseason game and I was excited as hell, can't imagine what it must've felt like to be sitting at this game against such a big opponent.
• Andrea Bargnani..sigh..can't say enough about this guy. I've been his biggest supporter, and he couldn't have done anything better tonight - if the refs didn't call the most BS fouls he could've easily had 30-36. No one could guard him out there, and it was extra fun watching him scorch Shaq daddy. He looked like he actually FELT that he was unstoppable, you could just see it in his eyes. And really, that's how it should be. It's like he was offended that the Cavs put Big Z/Shaq/Varejao on him.
  
• It's great to see Turkoglu driving, it really revs you up. His drives almost look...unpleasant and awkward, but its always on point and effective.
  
• You know what? Jose Calderon played awesome period. He had what, 8 assists in the first half if I remember correctly? He wasn't off-the-charts or anything, but there's been a lot of worry about his play since last year, and I thought he was damn solid tonight.
  
• I LOVED Jarrett Jack's aggressiveness in the fourth. It just seemed like the Raptors would've never done that last year in the 4th quarter of an important game - take it to the whole and push the ball continuously.
  
• I'm not a big fan of Jose and JJ at the 1 and 2, but it wasn't bad in the fourth quarter.
  
• Even though Bosh didn't dominate by scoring, I still thought he had a monster game with the 16 boards to go along with his 21 points.
  
• I forgot about Anthony Parker..seriously. I didn't recognize him initially when he was on the floor in a Cavs uniform, definitely do not miss him, hope he does well though.
  
• I was on the ESPN Cavs-Raps message board, and a lot of Cavs fan seem to think if they had Delonte West it would've made a huge difference. Oh, and also, all the talk was about whether Shaq or LeBron, or the Cavs in general and whether them getting Shaq was a good idea or not. Not one word about the Raps' great game, rather how shitty Cleveland sucks. Understandable, we haven't done anything yet, especially after a dismal season last year.
• Shaq looks TERRIBLE. Like, REALLY BAD. And hell, he looks kinda fat, is it just me? He should've retired in Miami and gone out while still on top, but he keeps sagging on and has left his previous four teams on bad terms. Honestly, I love Shaq, I think he's funny as hell and would be an awesome guy to hang out with, but wtf is up with him acting like he's still a centerpiece of a team?
• How is Mike Brown still the head coach? How? I know they couldn't fire him after they went to the finals and all before, but wasn't last season's playoff exit a great excuse to let him go? They have NO offensive sets..like NONE.
  
• Do you think the Suns are roaring in laughter that Cleveland actually took Shaq aka the Big Geritol (from Basketbawful) off their hands?
• Marco Belinelli continues to wow with this...athleticism. And he looks like a total bum with that facial hair, but it kinda adds to his crazy "you have no idea what I'm going to do" game. His facial hair is basically the equivalent to Ginobili when he had his long hair.
  
• How long till LeBron gets sick of Shaq and there's bad vibes and rumours floating around about how they don't like each other? I say January. Because Shaq never adjusts to the teams he plays for, rather everyone has to adjusts for Shaq's team.
  
• If Kobe wins at least one more ring - which could very well happen this year - I wonder how much that's gonna eat at Shaq as Kobe will surpass him.
• Bryan Colangelo looked so worried during the fourth quarter it was hilarious..the man was sweating bullets. When he walked into the tunnel after the game was over, he had the biggest expression of relief of on his face, forget a tissue he needed a towel to wipe off the sweat.
  
• The twenty point lead was great - Cavs coming back all the way to TIE it was SCARY - but not surprising - but the way we responded to it was. It was a pleasant surprise, a huge horse to get off our backs with this first and oh-so-important game.
  
• Watching Big Z and Shaq go up the court is like watching a turtle and a snail.
  
• Jamario Moon! Remember him? What a bozo. I forgot about Parker, and even more so about Moon.