Raptors Drop from 23 to 26 in ESPN.com's "Future Power Rankings"

The good news is, I'm starting to hear some rumblings that Masai is on the way.

Nothing confirmed, but there have been a few tweets from Toronto media about it.

The bad news is, that's pretty much the only good news based on ESPN.com's latest edition of their NBA Future Power Rankings.

It's an "ESPN Insider" piece so I won't link to it here, but the pertinent parts go as follow:

... Toronto slid in our rankings this year after a season whose tumult was illustrated by then general manager Bryan Colangelo desperately putting his former No. 1 pick Andrea Bargnani on the trading block during a live local TV broadcast.

Bargnani was never traded, but the Raptors did absorb Rudy Gay and his swollen contract ahead of the deadline. In Toronto, Gay shot 42.5 percent from the floor, doing little to shed his label as an overpaid volume shooter. Gay is set to earn $37 million over the next two seasons.

The article goes on to note the Raps' disappointing finish, and fairly bleak outlook aside from Jonas Valanciunas and potentially players like Kyle Lowry, Amir Johnson and Terrence Ross. Essentially the team finished in the bottom 10 of every category used to rank teams (categories included things like "management, "players," "draft" etc), and obviously has a long way to go to jump back up in the standings.

Again, hopefully Masai, or whoever the new GM ends up being, is a big step in that direction.

And hey, the Dinos weren't 30th. They did finish ahead of the Milwaukee Bucks, Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns and Charlotte Bobcats so...