"There are any number of reasons for the Raptors to hold their final week of training camp here on the West Coast, thousands of kilometres away from home.

They have solitude to concentrate solely on basketball, they have a chance to spread the Maple Leaf Sports gospel in some marketing outreach program, they can work with the NBA in a never-ending attempt to "grow the sport."

But for Jose Calderon, who has seen his fair share of far-flung training camp locales in his six seasons with the Raptors, the reasons for loving this excursion are far simpler and more personal."