After years of being a perennial championship contender in the G-Leauge, and held up as an example of how multi-level development can lead to depth and assets for the parent NBA club, the Raptors 905 similar to their NBA affiliate have recently slid into hard times.
The 905 are quite literally the worst team in the entire G-League this season at 0-8, and have a -17 point differential per game, only ahead of the flailing G-League Ignite who are for all intents and purposes a glorified AAU team.
So, why have they been doing poorly? Let’s look at some of the team stats (spoiler, they may look familiar):
- The 905 are shooting 24% from three for the season. Only one single 905 player is shooting over 30% on ANY volume of threes, Nowell, who is at 38%.
- They are shooting 69% from the FT line as a team
- They are shooting 41% from the field over all. Not great!
Not only can they not score (literally worst in the G league) but they’re dead last in assists as you can imagine, but ALSO 25th in rebounding per game and additionally, they’re turning it over 19 times per game.
So… they can’t shoot. Can’t rebound. Can’t stop anyone and can’t stop turning it over themselves.
How did this happen? What happened to this once proud GLeague franchise and what does it say about the current Raptors’ lack of depth at the NBA level, if anything?
Is it just a coincidence? or is it symptomatic of something deeper going on at the Front Office level?
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Lots of injuries. Also there was a time when the 905 was winning because the Raptors org was one of the first to take it seriously. Now most orgs take it more seriously, so it’s much more competitive.
I think this is generally the MO of the Raptors org. They understand that they need to find inefficiencies to exploit in order to “win”. This was the ethos of the vision 6’9" thing – they knew they wouldn’t win if they tried to beat other teams at their game (i.e. imagine trying to beat the Warriors by playing the same brand of basketball).
the G-League is also weird in it’s player affiliations/rights. it’s not a true farm team, unless players are signed on two-way deals.
unless a player is signed to a two-way with the Raptors, any other team in the NBA that has a roster spot open can basically take the best players away from any other G-League team.
on top of that, there are lots of injuries on the 905 this year, and really the roster wasn’t THAT great to begin with.
they’re missing Nowell, Winslow, Morsell, Burns, Moore, and now Paige (got injured last game). that’s basically half their rotation, including 3 starters. Freeman-Liberty and Harper also missed several games. this is just a case of horrible luck, has nothing to do with talent scouting or front office decisions.