hat format? Certainly not first-class cricket, which is

This story is part of ESPN The Magazines Oct. 31 NBA Preview Issue. Subscribe today!Toronto RaptorsOverall: 52 Title track: 97 Ownership: 50 Coaching: 52 Players: 33 Fan relations: 37 Affordability: 104 Stadium experience: 44 Bang for the buck: 26 Change from last year: +42The Raptors are coming off their finest season in franchise history. They won a franchise-record 56 games during the regular season, advanced past the first round for the first time in 15 years and reached the Eastern Conference finals for the first time ever. What do they do for an encore? Jump another 42 spots in these standings -- and reach the top half for the first time since 2008.Whats goodThe Raptors arent planning to let go of this recent success. Over the summer, president Masai Ujiri and coach Dwane Casey received contract extensions, which should stabilize the franchise for years to come. Raptors lifer DeMar DeRozan agreed to stay in Toronto with a five-year deal of his own, which likely played a huge part in the rosters impressive, 66-spot jump in these standings (now 33rd overall and eighth in the NBA in players). Also, the Toronto fan base is as good as it gets. Air Canada Centre (ranked 44th in stadium experience) is always sold out, and the crowds in Jurassic Park outside the arena grow with each playoff win.Whats badA 104th-place ranking in affordability is surprising, as Toronto tickets are actually $7 cheaper than the league average. Perhaps Raptors fans are taking their title frustrations out on the pricing: At 97th, title track is the teams other worst showing. Assuming they can replicate what they did in 2015-16, the Raptors still have a problem: LeBron James, whose team has advanced to six consecutive NBA finals and knocked Toronto out in the Eastern Conference finals last season. The bar has been raised, but the Raptors can do everything right as a franchise, and theyll still be the underdogs. It will be difficult to get over the hump as long as James is healthy and dominating on the court.Whats newIn five years in Toronto, Dwane Casey has helped his team increase its win total every year since he arrived, leading to 2015-16s 56-win season. Casey has clearly convinced the fans, who bumped him up 60 spots this season to 52nd overall. Now the Raptors are hoping a former Casey assistant -- and two-time NBA All-Star -- can do the same with Torontos D-League team, Raptors 905. Jerry Stackhouse will coach the squad, based out of nearby Mississauga, Ontario, in its second season.Next: Miami Heat?| Full rankings Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale . The International Olympic Committee released the official list of bid cities on Friday after the deadline for applications had passed. The candidates -- all previously announced in their own countries -- are: Almaty, Kazakhstan; Beijing; Krakow, Poland; Lviv, Ukraine; Oslo, Norway; and Stockholm. Cheap Jerseys For Sale . MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also will attend the session, which was announced Monday. The league has discussed placing its next two expansion teams in Miami and Atlanta. http://www.cheapjerseysnflwholesaleauthentic.com/ . Detroit and Boston are deadlocked, 1-1, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland could be forgiven if he was caught rationalizing instead of dissecting how his club could blow a 5-1 lead late in Game 2. Wholesale Cheap Jerseys . -- Ohio States Urban Meyer has never had any issue acclimating to the biggest stages in college football. Wholesale NFL Jerseys . -- Ty Montgomery had 290 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns, and fifth-ranked Stanford held on to beat No. King Ralph (1991) A comedy based on the premise that the entire British royal family is killed in a freak accident (are you laughing yet?), King Ralph was largely forgettable - apart from one particular scene that will stick in the memory of cricket fans.John Goodman, then starring in the sitcom Roseanne, plays Ralph Jones, a Las Vegas lounge singer who is heir to the throne via an obscure out-of-wedlock dalliance between his grandfather, a British nobleman, and a hotel maid. Peter OToole plays the private secretary to the new King Ralph and has the task of acquainting him with British customs, one of which is cricket. A game is set up on the palace lawn, with Goodman in whites, helmeted and padded up and looking as cuddly as Colin Milburn or Mark Cosgrove. OToole advises the king to swing the bat vertically, not horizontally, and tries to convince him that the forward defence is the first shot he should master. Of course, like most of the film, the outcome is predictable. The king goes through all the baseball rituals - whacking the bat on both heels, a huge spit, and faces up with the bat hovering behind him like Jonny Bairstow.First ball he faces, King Ralph clubs the ball over cow corner and through a window into the palace, where a couple of startled policemen draw their guns. Its outta here, the king shouts, before he proceeds to run the bases, starting with the fielder at cover, then to the bowlers end. Thus ends the joke on cricket, with its target audience - Americans - satisfied that cricket is a pathetic imitation of baseball.Most critics viewed King Ralph as a one-joke comedy that relied heavily on Goodmans charm. He certainly won no awards for his role but perhaps the director, Arthur Hiller, saw something in the cricket scene: the following year he cast Goodman as Babe Ruth in the biopic The Babe.The Crying Game (1992) Like Goodman, Forest Whitaker is an American actor who donned the whites and took part in a cricket scene for his art. But whereas Goodman only had to bat like an American baseballer, Whitaker played a Brit in a serious film, and had to bowl a cricket ball convincingly. Mastering the English accent must have been easy by comparison.In summary: Whitaker plays Jody, a British soldier who is captured by the Irish Republican Army. Stephen Rea plays Fergus, an IRA volunteer tasked with guarding Jody. The two develop something of a bond, but when the IRAs demands are not met, Fergus is told to execute Jody. Fergus takes Jody to the woods to do so; Jody makes a run for it and is hit and killed by a British army truck.But Jody had previously asked Fergus to seek out his girlfriend should he be killed. Fergus heads to London and does so. The two hit it off, and while getting acquainted, Fergus suffers from a guilty mind and dreams of Jody - a keen cricketer - bowling a cricket ball at him. Whitakers cricket scene is brief and hazy but - a somewhat clunky action notwithstanding - he makes a pretty good stab at bowling.Of course, this is not the scene for which the film is best remembered. That comes soon afterwards, when Fergus faces up to a couple of mystery balls that challenge him rather more.Blended (2014) Whitaker can act - he has an Oscar to prove it - but can he bowl? The jury is out. Dale Steyn can bowl - he has 400 Test wickets that say so - but can he act? See Blended and decide for yourself. Widely panned, Blended was described by one reviewer as far from the worst movie to come out of a studio-subsidised Adam Sandler vacation. But then, thats a bit like saying one particular Chris Martin duck was far from his worst Test innings. It still doesnt mean it was good.All you need to know about the plot is that it involves a Brady Bunch-style blending of families, and a holiday to South Africa. At the resort, Sandler tries to teach his not-really-son how to play baseball, but all the resort has is a cricket bat and Dale Steyn. Sandler asks Steyn to pitch to the young boy. The first ball is on a good length, and the kid swings and misses. Dale, you think maybe you could reach the plate? That would help, says Sandler. Within the space of two minutes, Steyn gets to play cool, chastened, miffed and angry. And as the scene ends with family infighting, Steyn gets the final word: This shit just got real..ddddddddddddFor cricket fans who happened to see Blended, Steyn was probably the best thing in it. At least, unlike three cast members, he avoided nomination for a Golden Raspberry Award: Sandler was nominated for Worst Actor, Drew Barrymore for Worst Actress, and Shaquille ONeal for Worst Supporting Actor.The Lady Vanishes (1938) This was Alfred Hitchcocks last British film before moving to Hollywood, and two of the more memorable characters from The Lady Vanishes would have had no place in an American film. Charters and Caldicott, played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, are a couple of cricket tragics whose primary interest is not the title mystery - the elderly lady who goes missing on board a European train - but in getting themselves home to England in time to catch some of the Test in Manchester.In a hotel where the travellers are forced to stay a night (an avalanche has blocked the train), Charters takes advantage of an incoming call from London and the bellhops leaving the phone unattended. Tell me, whats happening to England? Charters enquires of the mystery chap on the other end of the phone. Blowing a gale? No, you dont follow me sir, Im enquiring about the Test match in Manchester. Cricket, sir, cricket! What, you dont know? You cant be in England and not know the Test score.Later, Caldicott is miffed at no mention of cricket in the only newspaper he can find, the International Herald Tribune. The Americans got no sense of proportion, he says. Not surprisingly, the pair profess to having no knowledge of the titular missing lady, largely because getting involved would risk them being delayed to the match.But of course it wouldnt be Hitchcock without some sort of twist. As Charters and Caldicott arrive at the station in London with ample time to catch the 6:50 to Manchester after all, they are stopped dead in their tracks. Well, not literally dead (despite this being a Hitchcock film), but their hope has certainly been killed off. A newspaper boy walks past them and the Evening News headline is plain for all to see: TEST MATCH ABANDONED: FLOODS. Poor Charters and Caldicott. If only ESPNcricinfo had been around back then, to help them keep up with the scores...Slumdog Millionaire (2008) And now we arrive at the big one, the Best Picture Academy Award winner in which cricket not only featured, but was central to the key moment: when the tea-boy Jamal Malik, played by Dev Patel, wins big on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? by correctly naming the batsman with the most first-class centuries in history.Throughout the film, we see the flashbacks through Jamals life that have helped him acquire the answers he needs to win on the quiz show. The cricket flashback involves Jamal in conversation with his love interest, Latika, while cricket is on TV in the background. Eagle-eyed viewers will note there are some inconsistencies with this scene, though. At first we are told of history unfolding at the Wankhede Stadium, where Sachin Tendulkar is on the verge of an Indian record 38th century. In what format? Certainly not first-class cricket, which is Jamals question. When we see the action, though, it is clearly a one-day international between India and South Africa. When Tendulkar is run out for 99 it becomes clear the match in question was in fact the first ODI of the Future Cup in Belfast in 2007.Despite the best efforts of the host to feed him the wrong answer, enough cricket knowledge has seeped into Jamals brain by osmosis that he correctly identifies Jack Hobbs as the man with the record for most first-class centuries. Tendulkar and Michael Slater - yes, Michael Slater - are ruled out when Jamal uses his 50-50 lifeline, and he is left to choose Hobbs over Ricky Ponting.For good measure, there is also a scene early in the film in which a group of boys are playing cricket on a tarmac and a very young Jamal drops a skied catch when a plane flies overhead. But for sheer novelty, the cricket highlight of Slumdog Millionaire has to be Damien Fleming commentating and Billy Bowden being name-checked. What other winner of the Best Picture Oscar gives you that? Not Schindlers List, thats for sure. ' ' '