Lunchbox Links: Raptors Season Previews, Calderon vs Lowry, Carter vs Mitchell and More

Welcome to the new SB Nation folks, and yes, therefore the new RaptorsHQ. We'd love your feedback on the new look and feel as well as any suggestions on how to continually improve a site that's entering it's, gasp, eighth season of existence!

But first, let's get to some lunchbox links on this Tuesday, starting things off with some more Raptors' previews.

HoopsManifesto breaks down the club as it enters the 2012-13 season, and Hasan Alanam at Canada.com has the club pegged to win 38 wins and in a dog-fight with clubs like Milwaukee and Washington for a playoff spot.

Speaking of which, SI's roundtable has the Raptors in a fight with the same teams for a playoff spot as one of last year's lottery clubs that could make the playoff jump this year. Also from SI.com, some of the upcoming season's top storylines.

Heading back to Raptors' previews, the Toronto Sun's Mike Ganter looks at the team's top five storylines as the season nears, and also touches on the depth of the club this year at training camp, a nice problem for coach Dwane Casey to have.

Also reporting for the Sun, Ryan Wolstat notes that the Jonas Valanciunas injury could have been a lot worse, while there's no pouting from Jose Calderon, who likely starts the season behind new point guard Kyle Lowry. Calderon, the consummate pro, appears to be taking things in stride, and Coach Casey noted to the media yesterday that Calderon and Lowry will likely share the court at times this season.

Heading back to Jonas, Raptorblog's Joseph Casciaro takes a look at some reasonable expectations for the Raptors' rookie big man, similar to our look earlier in the off-season.

And if there is one link you're going to read from today's batch, or wait, two, as this is in two parts, make sure you check out Eric Koreen's great chat with Raptors' analytics guru Alex Rucker. Here's Part I, and here's Part II.

And let's end this session of LBL with a look back into Raptors' history. Yesterday Jalen Rose told the amazing story of the rumoured Vince Carter-Sam Mitchell wrestling match over at Grantland, and Yahoo! Sports' Kelly Dwyer extrapolated on it a bit later. It's a story that I never thought we'd get the true version of but hey, thanks to Jalen, we've got the full tale of what must have been a ridiculous situation. (Aaah the Rob Babcock era.)

It's also a story that had Turbozone up to their old tricks...