Raptors 905 held their annual open tryouts on Saturday. While I was in attendance, I haven’t written anything up because only about 20 minutes of the entire day was open to the media, so I didn’t get a great feel for any standouts or hidden gems. There were three players who popped a little bit (Richard Amardi, Aaron Best, and Denny McDonald), but there may be some bias in that I knew who they were already and was looking for them to stand out in the first place. There was also at least one name who couldn’t be in attendance who might be an interesting person to slide on the camp roster, if he’s willing.
From here, the 905 can invite four “local” players to their training camp. The players can’t have their G-League rights owned by another team and have to make it through the draft (at the end of October) undrafted, so there are interesting decisions for the 905 brass to make – try to slide a player through the draft and add him as a local camp tryout or use a pick on him to make sure you get him.
In their inaugural season, the 905 had three open tryout players make it to camp, and Ashton Smith and Keanau Post lasted the entire season on the main roster. Last year, Negus Webster-Chan went from the open tryout to camp, then to the roster, then to playing a pretty meaningful role down the stretch. These camp invites don’t have to come from the open tryout – the 905 are free to add anyone who fits the “local” definition (all of Canada, I believe), and so there’s a good chance one or two names not in attendance will show up at camp in November.
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Also of note from the session, I met Chad Sanders, who will be taking over as Raptors 905 Manager of Basketball Operations. Sanders was previously the director of the Dominican Republic national team and takes over fort Shelby Weaver, who moved into a player development role with the parent club Raptors. He also kind of looks like Dan Stevens.
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Below are some videos the 905 posted from the session.
Richard Amardi
(26 years old; 6-foot-9 forward; Scarborough; Out of Oregon; Spent the last three years in the NBL; Played for Canada in FIBA AmeriCup this summer)
Aaron Best
(25 years old; 6-foot-4 guard; Scarborough; Out of Ryerson; Spent first pro season in Lithuania last year)
Nathaniel Mitchell
(Raptors 905 assistant coach; Canadian senior men’s national team assistant coach)
Dan Tolzman
(Raptors 905 general manager; Toronto Raptors assistant general manager and vice president of player personnel)
