From multiple call-up players, assignment players in and out, and a near-historic start to the regular season before an unworldly collapse, it was a rollercoaster season, to say the least for the 2024-2025 Raptors 905.
It was the 10-year celebration season for the Mississauga squad, which saw history made both good and bad all under first-year head coach Drew Jones. The sixth head coach in franchise history, Jones got his first professional head coaching opportunity after joining the Raptors organization last season on Darko Rajakovic’s staff. The 37-year-old was tasked with helping turn around the 905 after the team went 17-33 during an injury-riddled 2023-2024 season and 40-60 overall in the last two years under Eric Khoury, missing the playoffs both seasons. It’s been a long fall for the former champion.
The beginning of the season was not kind to the 905, finishing the Tip-Off Tournament 5-11. Many factors contributed to the poor start, like injuries (a theme throughout the season), player movement (another theme throughout the season), and first-year head coach Jones getting his feet wet.
Once the regular season started, however, a switch was flipped. It helps, of course, that the 905 had far more talent available during the regular season. The team would start the clean slate 11-4, the second-best start the franchise has ever seen in their decade-long history, and lead the Eastern Conference. Getting more talented players in the system played a part in the turnaround, of course, with the team going out and acquiring Canadians A.J. Lawson and Eugene Omoruyi, as well as veterans Jared Rhoden, and Frank Kaminsky. It takes more than just talent to win games, however; as coach Jones notes.
It was also during this stretch Canada’s only G-League team had assignment players down and playing, in rookies Ja’Kobe Walter, Jonathan Mogbo, Jamal Shead, and Jamison Battle. The quartet of “Js” didn’t factor into many minor league games, with Shead and Walter appearing in five and six games respectively, while Mogbo (13 games) and Battle (17 games) saw some more time in the G. While it’s hard to say Walter and Shead marginally improved in such little time, you can see the difference in Mogbo and Battles’ games on the big stage. The 31st overall pick Mogbo has been far more aggressive offensively, helping him become the first rookie this season to record a triple-double. For the undrafted Battle, it’s been the defence. He’s become a more physical defender this season, willing to stick his nose in anything, even breaking it at one point.
The team, unsurprisingly, was good with at least one of those four in the lineup, finishing 12-8. If you take out Battle — who played in two games without other NBA teammates — the record improves to 12-6. Those two games from Battle would be the only games the 905 would get from one of the quartet in the final 19 games, however, as that near-historic 11-4 start was completely erased.
The team would go on to lose 17 of their last 19 games, finishing the regular season 13-21, 14th in the eastern conference and sixth-worst overall. It was a complete collapse. The 905 also hit an all-time low, losing a franchise-long 10 games in a row amid the unravelling, breaking the decade-long nine-game losing streak the team suffered in their debut season.
With the Toronto Raptors needing most of their potential G-League talent to close out the season, it wasn’t just the assignment players that saw little to no time with the 905. The two-way players barely played as well, with Brampton, Ontario native A.J. Lawson playing in only one game in the final 12, Jared Rhoden playing in half of the final dozen games, and Ulrich Chomche missing the final 15 contests with a partial MCL tear. Kaminsky only played in a pair of games in March and missed the final 10 games. Dylan Disu only played two regular season games in total, and even players like Charlie Brown Jr. and Toronto-raised forward Eugene Omoruyi missed a handful of contests.
It meant players like Tylor Perry, Tyreke Key, and Montreal native Quincy Guerrier saw more time, all of whom were out of the rotation to begin the regular season. The team was forced to sign four players who were available in the G-League player pool in Lacey James, Loudon Love, Quinn Slazinski, and DJ Jeffries. The talent level dwindled, and the predictable result was losses. The interest in the team waned throughout this process, but that didn’t mean the team stopped playing hard, with coach Jones preaching certain pillars all season.
“We talk about four things: care, connection, character, and compete,” said Jones.
“With the assignments and two-way’s, it can be challenging. But I challenged our group to stay connected and remain connected. A connected team is a powerful team.”
Still, there were positive developments. One of the more fascinating developments this season was the backcourt rotation, between the four guards who joined in four different ways — Tylor Perry (draft), Tyreke Key (tryout), Evan Gilyard II (trade), and Kennedy Chandler (free agency). The latter was the one who started out the gate, with Chandler winning the job out of camp. The 22-year-old finished the year averaging 13.2 points, 5.1 assists, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.3 steals while shooting 48.1 percent from the field and 35.8 percent from distance. He was also the only player on the 905 to play all 50 games. While Perry and Key rarely got opportunities until March, with Perry showing flashes as a pull-up shooter and Key defending and working his you know what off, it was Gilyard who emerged.
Gilyard entered his second year of G-League basketball after coming off the bench for the Windy City Bulls last season, averaging 5.9 points, 2.3 assists, and nearly a steal in 14.6 minutes per game across 37 contests last year. He once again came off the bench as the backup point guard, but it didn’t take long for things to change. The second game of the regular season would see the 26-year-old make his first start of the season, taking the reins as the starting point guard for the remainder of the season. He would evolve into basically the teams’ go-to guy as the regular season progressed, having a particularly strong finish to the season. The 5-foot-10 guard averaged 19.0 points, 5.7 assists, 2.6 rebounds, and 1.4 steals in the final 11 games (excluding the season finale), and was efficient while doing so. Gilyard shot 46.3 percent from the field, 39.7 percent from distance, and 87.8 percent from the free throw line. His game revolved around pushing the pace consistently and hitting shots from all over the court at a decent clip.
In the frontcourt, a couple of Canadians made some noise in Omoruyi and Guerrier. Omoruyi was the more consistent of the two, being one of the best players on the squad from the moment he was signed till the end of the season. The 28-year-old averaged a cool 18.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.3 assists while shooting 51.2 percent from the field across 37 regular season and Tip-Off Tournament games this year. The forward’s strong play earned him a 10-day contract with the big club as well.
Guerrier had a more up-and-down season. In his first professional season, the rookie went from completely out of the lineup to playing major minutes in March. The 25-year-old’s interesting blend of athleticism, length, and defensive capabilities was on full display as he provided strong play to end the season.
The team failed to make the playoffs for the third year straight and is still in search of a championship for the first time since 2017. But it is developing. After the 905 matched a franchise-high five call-ups last season (Javon Freeman-Liberty, Justise Winslow, Mouhamadou Gueye, Jontay Porter, Kobi Simmons), the team had two call-ups from their own squad (Rhoden and Omoruyi) and three more from around the G League (Lawson, Colin Castleton, and Cole Swider). Overall it’s hard to call it a wasted season with how successful players who have come through the system have performed at the next level. The rookies got development time, previous unknowns like Gilyard and Guerrier showed things to earn opportunities next year, and the team showed that if they were at full strength, reaching the championship would have been fully within reach.
