Title: Raptors 905 finish season successful even without another G League title
Date: April 11, 2018
Original Source: The Athletic
Synopsis: In my latest for The Athletic Toronto, I reflected on another successful season for Raptors 905, who proved just as much in coming up short in the finals as they had by winning the year prior.
There may be no greater measure of a G League program’s success than its ability to thrive amid chaos. The league runs on instability, and only the truly adaptable can navigate the roster churn, rule experimentation, and occasional oddness of the NBA’s feeder system. Wins and losses tell only one part of the story, and how a team handles adversity — from outside forces and self-made, Pyrrhic victories — is a reasonable scale. Consistently drawing positives from the tumult is all a franchise can really ask of its G League affiliate.
Two consecutive trips to the G League Championship isn’t a bad measure, either.
That’s where Raptors 905 found themselves at the end of their 2017-18 season, finishing just two wins away from becoming the first G League team to repeat as champion since 2005, when the league looked drastically different. In coming up short — the 905 lost Game 2 of the best-of-three series to the Austin Spurs on Tuesday, conceding the championship in the process — the 905 did not fail so much as put a magnifying glass on all the ways in which they’ve succeeded this season. Is that cheesy? Absolutely. And it’s as accurate as it is cheesy.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 