Somehow, someway, we will be seeing NBA preseason action tonight, exactly two months after the Los Angeles Lakers won the 2020 Championship. The league has moved through the offseason to get to the regular season like a seven-year-old moves through a chicken salad to get to a chocolate cake desert — it’s been messy, rushed, and a bad decision for overall health.
Nevertheless, we are here, and the Toronto (Tampa?) Raptors had an active offseason (and tip-off their preseason tomorrow). That means there are lessons to be learned. So, in what will be a weekly column this season, Three Lessons attempts to glean the major takeaways from what we have observed.