The Toronto Raptors have already made their intentions for the season clear: turn potential into progress.
Aiming to vault off last year's momentum back into the competitive landscape of the Eastern Conference.
Now, as the Raptors 905 prepare to begin their season on Friday at home against the College Park Skyhawks, the G League affiliate is hoping for a trickle-down effect.
The junior dinos are coming off a couple of challenging seasons and three years without a playoff berth, similarly, and not totally unrelated to the Raptors going through comparable struggles.
While the NBA squad navigated its first rebuild in over a decade — and a slew of injury-riddled campaigns — it led to a steady carousel of 905ers slipping in and out of the G League for opportunities with the big club. A situation that proved to be a double-edged sword for the minor-league team, as the excitement for individual players was stymied by the 905 struggling to manage without its usual talent. Last year's 11-4 start to the regular-season — second-best in franchise history — was ultimately dashed by a 2-17 finish, with leading scorers A.J. Lawson and Jared Rhoden spending much of that time in the NBA.
But now, as the Raptors aim for consistency across the board in a season headlined by expectations, the 905 hope it'll mean the same for them with a roster chalk full of intriguing players for second-year head coach Drew Jones III to work with.
General manager Luke Winn has assembled a squad — balanced with promising youngsters and seasoned veterans (Patrick McCaw!) — looking to mimic the Raptors in more ways than one this year. Not just playing the same way, or running the same schemes, but, more importantly, turning last year's buildup into this year's breakthrough.
With that being said, here are four more storylines to keep an eye on heading into the Raptors 905 season.
Changing of the guards
A constant goal for any G League team is to build synchronicity with its NBA counterpart. And if the 905 are going to pursue the same ball-pressure-led approach the Raptors entered their season preaching, expect dogged defenders Chucky Hepburn and Alijah Martin to lead the way as the presumed starting backcourt.
Hepburn joins the 905 after going undrafted in June, and is in pole position to be the squad's floor general. The six-foot-two senior was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year last year after he led the conference with 2.4 steals per game to go along with 16.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 5.8 assists. And while pre-season offered just five games of a sample size, he nailed 8-of-16 triples with the Raptors during the exhibition schedule, looking less like the player who shot 32 per cent from deep in his final year with Louisville and more like the one who converted at a 40 per cent as a junior.
Martin, the 39th overall pick of the 2025 draft, not only brings defensive acumen and athletic upside — remember his poster slam from Summer League?! — but also offers plenty of winning pedigree. The 23-year-old started all but two of his 38 games for the Florida Gators en route to a national championship last season, and he's one of four players in NCAA Division I history to reach the Final Four with two different programs, leading Florida Atlantic there as a junior. Martin averaged 14.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.5 steals while shooting 35 per cent from beyond the arc as a senior.
Consistent guard play was hard to come by for the 905 last season, and that's rarely a recipe for success at any level. Hepburn and Martin, occupying two of Toronto's three two-way slots, represent a one-two punch that should cause steady damage on both ends of the floor on a nightly basis.
More opportunity for Mogbo
Jonathan Mogbo entered Year 2 with the Raptors on the outside looking in as free agent acquisition Sandro Mamukelashvili and ninth-overall pick Collin Murray-Boyles usurped the forward on the depth chart.
Subsequently, last year's 31st overall pick was assigned to the 905 for their season-opener on Friday after being limited to spot minutes and garbage-time duties for much of Toronto's start.
It offers Mogbo the opportunity to flesh out his game while he and the organization try to figure out his role in the pros. The Raptors spent a chunk of his rookie season — including a one-month stint with the 905 — looking to convert Mogbo from a small-ball centre into more of a jumbo wing after his play-finishing abilities from college struggled to translate against the size/strength of NBA defenders. And while the "wingification" process upped the 24-year-old's confidence to end the 2024-25 campaign, the results were hardly conclusive. It'll be interesting to see if the organization continues down that path or reverses course.
Although Mogbo's potential is undeniable as he was one of just two rookies to post a triple-double in the NBA last season (albeit during the malaise of March) and he's proven to be one of the most versatile defenders on Toronto's roster, it's not likely his spot in the Raptors rotation will change any time soon.
The 905 will happily welcome him in the meantime.
Men in the middle
At first glance, it doesn't seem like Olivier Sarr and Julian Reese have much in common aside from their positions — one is an eldest brother born in France, the other is the youngest in his family from Baltimore, M.D.
But it's exactly those familial bonds that tie the two together in a rather unique way. Both are siblings to top 10 picks in 2024 — Alex Sarr (Washington Wizards) and Angel Reese (WNBA's Chicago Sky) — while they've gone undrafted, stacking plenty of chips on their shoulders. (Although Olivier did earn some bragging rights over his younger bro with a game-winning lob at the buzzer against Washington in pre-season.)
The 26-year-old spent his first three NBA seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder, most of that time cycling between the G League and short-term NBA deals. Sarr helped the OKC Blue win a title last year but tore his Achilles in the deciding game, subsequently missing all of the 2024-25 campaign. Now healthy again, he's looking to pick up where he left off.
As for Reese, he comes north of the border after four collegiate seasons at Maryland. The six-foot-nine 22-year-old averaged 13.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.5 blocks as a senior as he helped the Terrapins reach the Sweet 16, where they fell to Martin's Gators.
The 905 offers the pair of centres a proving ground and plenty of opportunity in the middle of the floor. Following the loss of Ulrich Chomche, after the Cameroonian youngster and shot-blocking savant was waived as he recovers from an undisclosed illness, Sarr and Reese step in as lead candidates to fill the void.
Canadian contingent
The 905 will feature a trio of Canucks to open the season, headlined by the return of Lawson, who was previously converted to a two-year standard (non-guaranteed) NBA deal toward the end of last season.
Although the Raptors waived him before the start of the 2025-26 campaign, the Brampton, Ont. native was brought back on a two-way deal, primed to spearhead the 905 once again. Lawson led the junior dinos in scoring last season with 19.6 points per game on 38 per cent shooting from distance, as he was selected to the G League Next Up game at NBA all-star weekend. The 25-year-old swingman has proven he can score at an elite level in the minors — even flashing that prowess with the Raptors last year, scoring a record-tying 32 points against the Wizards — but now his efforts hopefully won't go in vain with a better collection of defenders around him so as not to give those points back on the other end nearly as often.
Also returning is Montreal's Quincy Guerrier, who spent the summer representing his hometown Alliance in the Canadian Elite Basketball League. While the 26-year-old's role fluctuated with the 905 last year, with other wings rotating on and off the roster — Jones credited Guerrier's consistent presence as a leader on the sidelines even when his minutes were limited — he showed his upside in the CEBL. Taking on a more primary role with Montreal, Guerrier averaged 16.2 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists.
Jaden Bediako rounds out the Canadian contingent, joining the 905 as a local tryout player. The Brampton, Ont. native also spent much of his summer in the CEBL, logging 22 appearances with the Saskatchewan Rattlers. The 25-year-old averaged 8.1 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.2 blocks during that span and should offer the 905 some nice depth as a bruising backup big.
