The annual Raptors 905 tryout draws dreamers, diehards — and the delusional. Three hours later, Star reporter Libaan Osman knew which one he was.

Osman writes:

An awkward silence fell over the crammed dressing room of basketball hopefuls at the OVO Athletic Centre.
Someone had made the mistake of saying: “We’re going to have fun today, right?” He was met with silence as hopefuls bolted for the court without a word, sizing each other up before battle.
That was when I realized what I was getting into.
There were two extremes of people who showed up at the Raptors 905’s annual open tryout last month. Some were fighting for one last shot at their basketball dreams. Others paid $275 to find out exactly what separates a dreamer from a professional. Me? I wanted to experience what it was like to be a pro for a few hours.
One person brought his own basketball and refused to let anyone touch it. Another group savoured every moment, taking selfies with their 905 practice jerseys, capturing videos of the hallways and snapping pictures of posters of Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, taken when they first joined the organization and won an NBA D-League title with the 905 in 2017.
I’ve seen the dedication and talent needed to become an NBA player. I have none of that, and knew my hopes of making the 905 were less likely than winning the lottery. 

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Do you think Jalen Brunson is scared seeing Ja'kobi Gillespie coming into the league ? With his very fast hands we could have a great rivalry between these two.

All three reclassified and will be playing college basketball at just 17 years old this season.

What are your expectations for each of them? How much of an impact do you think they’ll have as freshmen, and what kind of production do you expect?

Who do you think will have the best season of the three? Not necessarily who has the highest NBA ceiling, but who will be the most productive and impactful this year.

How would you rank them 1–3?

His 3 point shooting has been TERRIBLE, his jumper is terrible. He’s like 2/20 since Summer League. Was it this bad in college? I find it hard to believe such a glaring weakness was overlooked when taking him with the 1st overall pick.

Always dangerous to invest is summer league stock but seem quite promising, I'm curious to see once he gets some minutes in real NBA games.

From what we've seen, incredible rebounder, very explosive, solid on defense but lacks of finishing near the rim.

Could he evolve into a Mitchell Robinson type of player with maybe a little bit wider skillset ? Could he be above Luke Kornet in the rotation next year ?

From what I’ve seen from Cam Boozer in college, summer league and preseason, it seems like Cam Boozer has no flaws at all. Even with the athleticism and defensive question marks, Cam has answered that question by losing weight and looking quicker on his feet and looks good defensively so far in the preseason and it looks like that improved athleticism will foreshadow good things that will happen when the season starts soon.

Out of all the players I’ve seen, I never seen such a unique player like Cam Boozer cause I never seen a player who plays like Cam in my history of watching the NBA. Most players have 1 style that they stick to and that’s it. If your a guard or wing, your going to operate in the perimeter as a ball handler, handle the ball in the P&R and occasionally post up or faceup at the elbows and boxes. A big will post up on the low block, operate at the dunker spot to catch lobs or just dunk or layup, pick and pop, set screens by rolling to the rim, set screens & then catch a lob, get downhill from the short roll or do a DHO like a Jokic or Sabonis.

Cam is someone who can do both by operating as a wing style point forward but can also play like a big too and does big like things especially when it comes to the dirty work. And I think that’s the conundrum for Cam is that he does so many good things on the court but doesn’t do a single thing elite.

Is Cam Boozer having too much diversity in his game preventing him from having a higher ceiling and should he simplify his game because of this or am I overthinking this and just wrong for making Cam having too much diversity in his game into a bad thing?

Those two guys were "meh" prospects but later on bloomed as the season went.

My canidates for potential All stars/ Franchise players are Jordan Smith Jr, Stefan Joksimovic,Motiejus Krivas.

All three players have swing abilities that can make them Franchise cornerstones.

Still getting to know this class, but I'm not particularly excited by it, especially if you're a franchise looking for a player to change your fortunes. There does appear to be some potential depth in this draft, though.

I'm comfortable having Tyran Stokes at No. 1, and I'm probably a little higher on some of the sophomores than others. I previously had Cameron Williams higher, but apparently he's been battling a virus, and Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje looks to have locked down the starting spot.

Brandon McCoy would be somewhere around the middle of the first round for me, but he's now unlikely to play this season.

I also think the consensus is sleeping on Marcius Ponder. A lot of freshmen get projected as first-rounders early in the draft cycle but never find themselves in a position to establish meaningful minutes. Marcius, on the other hand, has a clear path to playing time.

Pick Player

1 Tyran Stokes

2 Jordan Smith Jr.

3 Caleb Holt

4 Hugo Yimga-Moukouri

5 Stefan Joksimović

6 Alijah Arenas

7 Tounde Yessoufou

8 Bruce Branch III

9 Anthony Thompson

10 Thomas Haugh

11 Sheldon Henderson

12 Dame Sarr

13 Dylan Mingo

14 Baba Oladotun

15 Cameron Williams

16 Patrick Ngongba II

17 Malachi Moreno

18 Braylon Mullins

19 JJ Andrews

20 Quentin Coleman

21 Jason Crowe Jr.

22 Amari Allen

23 Motiejus Krivas

24 Abdou Toure

25 Cameron Houindo

26 Miikka Muurinen

27 Luigi Suigo

28 Colben Landrew

29 Marcius Ponder

30 Deron Rippey Jr.

Second Round

Pick Player

31 Sayon Keita

32 Billy Richmond III

33 Christian Collins

34 Trey McKenney

35 Tyler Tanner

36 Klark Riethauser

37 Jalen Haralson

38 Davis Fogle

39 Juke Harris

40 Ivan Kharchenkov

41 Rueben Chinyelu

42 Moustapha Thiam

43 Dash Daniels

44 Mor Massamba Diop

45 Milan Momcilovic

46 Neoklis Avdalas

47 Austin Goosby

48 Alex Condon

49 David Mirkovic

50 Andrej Stojakovic

51 Flory Bidunga

52 JT Toppin

53 Daniel Jacobsen

54 Dwayne Aristode

55 Miles Byrd

56 Pavle Bačko

57 Marc-Owen Fodzo Dada

58 Jeremy Fears Jr.

59 Najai Hines

60 Nikolas Khamenia

Also had 2 steals, all in 18 minutes. I know this game wasn't much watch TV, but his defensive prowess is night and day compared to Acuff. Was scared the Nets made the wrong choice, but this silenced all my fears.

I Studied some data over the past 20 years.

Landing the unicorns—players who are drafted under the age of 20 and become historically great and stay with your team, is really a matter of drafting in the top 5 plain and simple. In almost every case over the past 20 years the <20 y/o drafted in the top 5 was a fairly obvious pick that anyone with eyeballs could have done successfully.

Once you get out of the top 5 where other variables come into play, we still often find teams drafting "high upside" <20 y/o players. But what the data show is that this is a strategy that reliably fails.

A few things to consider. Players rarely stay with their drafting team for more than 8 years. In fact, outside of top 5 picks that ratio is 12:1. This alone, should end arguments about age concerns of older draftees. The metrics that suggest teams should draft extreme youth are so weighted by elite draftees that are obvious top 5 picks that it obscures the fact that teams are otherwise better off drafting upperclassmen.

Older players produce more over their first three seasons regardless of draft slot (even including those elite top 5 picks). Across all draft slots, players over 20 average 2.45 VORP and -0.45 BPM where players under 20 produce 1.15 and -1.85 respectively over their first three seasons. This shouldn't be a surprise, but it is often overlooked for teams hoping to draft the next Kobe.

So if older players produce more in their first three years and almost all players depart after 8 seasons or earlier, the aging argument is effectively negated.

The only reason to draft extreme youth is to get a franchise cornerstone you can build around but the reality is if you don't have a top 5 pick that's incredibly unlikely. But it's even less likely to happen if you try to draft a player under 20. or even the next Jokic (drafted 41st) Giannis (drafted 15th), Booker (13th) or Bam (14th) DeRozan (9th). This is the list of guys who have become franchise cornerstones with the team that drafted them under 20 and outside of the top 5 over the past 20 years. And two of them (Jokic and Giannis) have atypical paths to the NBA.

Here's a graph of notable players over the past 20 years drafted between 6 and 30—excluding career bench players and draft and stash players who don't pan out.

I chose to include Kawhi in the over 20 group since at 19 years 359 days he was much more 20 than 19. But even moving him to the other group it doesn't change the story in the data.

Like his conditioning has already started to improved and he’s shown to be pretty coordinated for a huge Center. As well as his pick n rolls coverage has been actually solid in the preseason. I know it’s only preseason! But he’s definitely showed a lot more than he did in the summer league

Orlando needs a big man to develop with Goga being a free agent and Vucevic as well only Wendell Carter Jr is signed for next season.

1) Patrick Ngongba

2) Sayon Keita

3) Luigi Sugio

4) Flory Bidunga

Etc I feel like Orlando getting an high motor above the rim finisher would make them even more lethal.

In light of the recent draft conversation, now’s the best time to drop the first official BYRHERIM 2027 Big Board.

Some players have already played and some intel has been released, so this is the first look we get this year.

As per usual, any questions can be asked and I’ll respond.

I wasn't a big fan of him during the draft process but I was shocked when he fell to the second round

I wonder how people will react If Aday Mara did this.

This is probably been the most excited I’ve been to watch a rookie class in quite some time. I feel like any of these guys could win. But what I wonder is, how will the voting go? Will voters value how impactful a team is. For example if Washington or Utah makes the playoffs does that give more value to AJ or Peterson? Or will the voters value straight statistics and counting stats that’s where like Acuff and Wilson a Boozer have a shot. Who are your early choices for ROY?

I think that Acuff has the best chance, but I wonder if politics such as the big names of AJ Boozer and Peterson will be too much for him to overcome.

Just wanted to give Stirtz some love. His shooting has been fantastic, both on ball and off. And he seems to like taking over in the fourth quarter.

EDIT: Just saw this: Stirtz is currently leading the entire NBA in points this preseason with 61. Anthony Edwards is second with 59.

With all the hype AJ has gotten I want to make sure 3rd year Kyshawn George isn’t being forgotten. He’s improved his shooting even more and is turning into a do it all wing for the wizards.

ESPN Box Score

Don't be misled by the stat-line. De Larrea was very impactful throughout most of the game. What the box score doesn't show is how good he is at organizing the offense for his team. It felt like the Mavericks had a decent look whenever he was on the court. He also seems to be a pretty good rebounder for his position with a high motor.

Also, the second highest plus minus for this game was a +14 from Dwight Powell in 15 minutes. I know it's preseason, but Sergio having this high of a plus minus in a single game as a rookie is pretty funny.