Report: Raptors to sign guard Isaiah Taylor to fill final roster spot

With the departure of Jordan Loyd at the start of August, it was clear the Raptors would try to sign someone to come in as both another guard option and to fill the team’s 20th roster spot prior to training camp.

The news today, care of Adrian Wojnarowski at ESPN, completes the story on who that player will be: Isaiah Taylor. See the tweet below.

Taylor is a 25-year-old guard, listed at 6’3” and 170 pounds, who went undrafted after the 2016 NBA Draft but made his way to the Houston Rockets for the 2016-17 season with a three-year non-guaranteed contract. He appeared in four games for Houston at age 22, spent some time in the then-D-League, and also suffered a groin injury that kept him off the court for some time.

Eventually the Rockets waived Taylor and he turned up the following season in Atlanta where he showed out for 67 games, including nine starts. During this run Taylor averaged 6.6 points per game, 3.1 assists, and 1.4 rebounds, while shooting 42 percent from the field, and 25 percent from three. There too Taylor was waived, after which he was signed and released by the Cleveland Cavaliers prior to the 2018-19 season.

All told, there’s not much to remark on here. Taylor provides the Raptors with the guard skills they lost in Loyd, but he hasn’t done a ton to distinguish himself from the pack. He’ll likely spend training camp competing with Cameron Payne to be Toronto’s third/fourth point guard with no guarantee he’ll be part of the Raptors’ squad at all. There’s the possibility of heading to the G League with the 905, but that remains to be seen.

As is usually the case prior to the start of training camp, the Raptors are trying to see who can fit with the organization, who they can develop, and who won’t make it to the start of the 2019-20 season.