Pop quiz: What do Norm Powell, Lucas Nogueira, Jakob Poeltl, Delon Wright, Fred VanVleet, and Pascal Siakam have in common?
Apart from being rotation players and important contributors to the 2017-18 edition of the Toronto Raptors, they’ve all cut their teeth in the organization’s developmental system playing for the G-League’s Raptors 905.
In just two seasons, the 905, who tip off their season on Sunday, have become the model G-League franchise.
They attract a local fan base, provide a valuable training ground for staffers at all positions, have becoming a landing spot for local Canadian talent, and operate in concert and under the supervision of their parent club. They even have their own cult hero in the form of head coach Jerry Stackhouse, who helped lead the team to a G-League championship last season and is poised to make the jump from the 905 to a head coaching gig in the NBA in the near future.
But nowadays, the crop of young prospects the Raps honed with the team — all 25 years old or younger — are simply too good for the G-League, and it’s forcing the franchise to re-think how they’ll use what has been a valuable asset.
Looking at the way the organization has utilized its G-League asset to this point, it’s clear the Raptors have been ahead of the curve compared to the rest of the NBA. And it’s paying off in a major way so far this season.
Siakam has been a revelation since being inserted into the starting lineup — his 20-point performance against the Golden State Warriors is along the lines of what 905 fans saw from him throughout last season, particularly in the playoffs where he was named Finals MVP; Wright can barely be contained by opponents and is thriving as the Raps’ lead reserve guard; Powell has transformed himself from a second-round unknown dominating on the 905 just two years ago to a bona fide NBA starter; Nogueira can break a game open like few other players on the Raptors roster, as he showed during a career-night on Monday versus Portland; Poeltl has been as reliable as you could want from a prospect, and the steady hand of VanVleet has kept him on the floor in crucial stretches with the Raptors so far this season.
The Raptors drafted all of those players (save for VanVleet, who earned his roster spot out of training camp last season, and Nogueira, who was acquired via trade) with the specific intent of grooming them in the G-League, and Masai Ujiri and his staff spent years working out the details of how — and where — their minor-league team would operate.
The most important factor was geographic location, something the club had to learn the hard way after originally having their G-League affiliate located in Fort Wayne, Ind. With a team in their own backyard, the logic was that players in need of practice, or too far down on the depth chart to earn minutes, could practise with the Raptors by day and ply their trade with the 905 by night, where similar plays and philosophies were being used by a coaching staff in regular contact with the Raptors.
The 905 play just outside of Toronto at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, a mere 30-minute drive from the Raps’ practice facility downtown, and the team took advantage of its proximity often.
All told, over the past two seasons the Raptors have had more G-League transactions (calling up a player or sending him down) than any other NBA team — and it isn’t even close.
In his rookie year in 2015-16, Wright appeared in 15 games with the 905, and five last season while his role was as the Raps third-string point guard. In those two seasons Wright was a part of a whopping 38 transactions.
Powell, in his rookie year, was part of 14 transactions between late December of 2015 and early March 2016. Nogueira was sent back and forth 23 times, and Siakam was part of 26 transactions between February and April of this year alone.
“The whole idea is that back and forth,” says Raptors assistant general manager, VP of player personnel and Raptors 905 GM Dan Tolzman. “The more they can take what they’re learning from Raptors practices and take it back and put it into high-pressure situations in a G-League game, the better. Anything other than within the GTA would’ve been very difficult and probably would have defeated the purposes of it.”
The other determining factor was the ability to own the team, and therefore retain control over decision-making. “If we’re really going to take this tool and use it to its highest potential we need complete control in terms of having a say in what these guys are doing,” Tolzman says of early conversations about potentially purchasing a G-League franchise. “The more similarities between the two the better because it’s less of a transition for the players.”
You don’t need to look any further than Bruno Caboclo’s rookie season to see why that was so important.
When Caboclo was drafted, the Raps G-League affiliate was the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. They shared the affiliate with 11 (!) other NBA teams didn’t have regular access to their coaching staff. This was from a profile of Caboclo I wrote two summers ago:
On a Mad Ants team full of veterans looking to crack NBA rosters, helping to turn the then-19 year old rookie into a pro wasn’t exactly a focus for anybody in Fort Wayne. “You’re talking,” says former Mad Ants coach Jaren Jackson, “about guys who really don’t have the time to help him.”
In Caboclo’s D-league debut, he scored 13 points in 20 minutes. The next night, he went scoreless in five first-half minutes and didn’t leave the bench for the rest of the game. “So strange,” recalls Bruno, furrowing his brow as he looks down at the floor. “I would play well in the practice; the coach would tell me I’ll play in the next game. The next game, I sit on the bench. I wait, wait, wait, then nothing. I think, ‘What am I doing here?’”
“From the moment he stepped foot in Canada,” says Tolzman, “Bruno was a project player, and to not have that from his first year … we always say, ‘Where would he be if we had the 905 from day one with him?’”
For the kids stepping up big this season who had the 905 in place from Day 1, it’s proven its worth tenfold. But for that group, and rookie OG Anunoby, who has stepped into an NBA role ready to contribute, the 905 appears to be a thing of the past.
“It’s a good thing if they’re not needed [in the G-League] anymore,” says Tolzman. “It’s a good problem to have.”
So what’s the plan now? Tolzman says the team is still figuring it out, and don’t be surprised to see a more traditional use this season, with under-the-radar prospects and diamonds-in-the-rough finding a home with the 905. Two players on the Raptors roster, Malcolm Miller and Lorenzo Brown, are signed to two-way deals and will go back and forth. But save for Caboclo, don’t expect to see too many Raptors regulars making the trip to Mississauga.
“We’ve built in some holes in the past,” Tolzman says, “where we knew other guys would be coming down and we didn’t want to have too much depth. Now it’s going to be a totally different mindset.”
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