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It's still early yet, but Kyle Lowry is in midseason interview form.

The Toronto Raptors guard is doing four minutes of "Which version of 'Just trying to get better every day' can I answer this one with?" in a postpractice scrum. When it all gets too much, he announces "Good to talk to you!" while someone is starting to ask a question, and walks away.

Over three years, we've had Grumpy Kyle, Recommitted Kyle, I Choose You, Toronto Kyle, All-Star Kyle, Smouldering Postcollapse Kyle and Skinny Kyle. We're retrying Version 1.0. It's the one that fits him best, on and off the court.

DeMarre Carroll is new to this (up here, at least), and he's already getting weary. Someone asks about his on-again, off-again offence. Carroll locks him in a stare.

"You tell me," he says. "I don't know."

A small mental klaxon begins going off in 20 gathered heads: Danger. Evacuate this line of questioning. Danger.

"You see the first half of the Clippers game [when Carroll scored 21]?" he asks. "I'm a defensive-minded person first … That's the problem with the NBA. Too many people get caught up in the offence."

He's got a point. Also, no one will ever ask him about offence again.

Fifteen games into the season, it's a very different Raptors team from the one you remember from this time last year. That was a happy-go-lucky rocket ship to the playoff moon. Problematically, the engineers failed to mention that the boosters were designed to fall off after five months.

This team is a midnight Greyhound to the middle of the standings. It's already made a few unscheduled stops. Occasionally, it needs a push. Given how it ended in April, that's probably a good thing.

At this same point in 2014, the Raptors were 13-2. They were a few nights removed from a 17-point shellacking of LeBron James & Friends in Cleveland. They were an unstoppable juggernaut powered by civic desperation and Lou Williams's ball-hogging.

We were all in the midst of that favourite Toronto pastime whenever someone is passingly decent – "How good is Team X really? No, really. No, really really."

Not really, as it turns out. It wasn't the team, per se (though the personality makeup turned into a serious problem once things tightened up down the stretch). It was the way the roster had its head turned by all the good vibes washing down on them from the stands. Every unwise Vote Kyle Lowry to the All-Star Team promotion was a small nick in their postseason chances.

People believed, and so the team did, too.

This works as a virtuous circle until players start thinking you don't have to try very hard. Once that unit got tired (as in, once games actually started to matter), it disintegrated. By the end, they were the Harlem Globetrotters minus the confidence plus a small bit of defence. Very small.

This off-season wasn't subtraction by addition. It was just subtraction. The locker-room doubters, second-guessers and malcontents were pushed out. Like the Blue Jays before them and the Maple Leafs alongside them, the Raptors pushed the word "character" to the centre of their recruiting word cloud.

The results thus far are as expected – mediocre, with occasional bursts of genuine promise, and just as occasional bursts of brain freeze. They're 9-6. They could be 11-4. They could be 7-8.

At this point, the numbers don't matter in the least. That was another one of last year's mistakes – spending too much time with an eye on the standings. Everyone was guilty of treating an Atlantic Division title like a victory. No one noticed that the Raptors crossed the regular-season finish line on their knees.

"It's more realistic," coach Dwane Casey said Tuesday about this year's record versus last year's at the same time. He sounded relieved.

On Wednesday, they'll face what broadcasters like to call an early-season test (a game that doesn't mean very much in the grand scheme of things, but they'd be really happy if a whole bunch of you watched it). This is the first big-occasion encounter of the season, against James and the Cavaliers. Since it's Toronto's secular Christmas, Drake Night, the Pope of Degrassi Street may also be there. Fingers crossed!

Last year, we'd have made a big deal about this. In turn, the players would've believed it was a big deal – measuring themselves against the top-ranked team in the East.

This year, we know it means relatively little. Either Cleveland will have a good night and win, or a bad one and lose. In all likelihood, the Raptors – missing centre Jonas Valanciunas through injury, still trying to get used to each other – won't have much to say about it. They'll get lucky or they won't. This game is an indicator of nothing.

Cleveland will win the Eastern Conference this year. That looks like a mortal lock.

The Raptors will make the playoffs. That's a decent bet. They won't be seeded in the top four. Having managed it the previous two seasons and taken nothing from it, it doesn't feel like it matters that much. All we can say is they're good enough to enjoy one more chance at turning all that hopefulness into a tangible result.

Until then, they should hope for a low-grade invisibility. Listen to your own cliches. Do the work. Get better every day. Stay healthy. Above all, don't take yourselves at all seriously until you've done something serious.

From that perspective, the season couldn't have started any better. This is the team everyone cares about, but most people are still ignoring.

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