When the Raptors 905 issued an open call for prospective players, Negus Webster-Chan answered early, quickly falling into a game of H-O-R-S-E with head coach Jerry Stackhouse.

The friendly shooting contest grew intense.

When Stackhouse, who averaged 16.9 points a game over 18 NBA seasons, would hit a shot so would Webster-Chan, a Scarborough native looking to jump-start his hoops career.

The open tryout, at the University of Toronto’s Goldring Centre on Sept. 10, hadn’t started but Webster-Chan’s audition had already begun. Stackhouse eventually won the contest but the 23-year-old had won the coach’s respect.

Participants had to pay $275 each to be in the open tryout and it paid off for Webster-Chan, who earned a spot on the Raptors 905’s final roster. He’ll take the court Friday night when the club begins its second season at home in the NBA Development League vs. Greensboro. And he hopes his stint here can lend momentum to a career slowed by false starts.

“It’s another opportunity to showcase to GMs overseas and in the NBA that I can be versatile, play the one, two, three and guard the four,” says Webster-Chan, a 6-foot-7 shooting guard. “Just put myself back out there again.”

Last season the club averaged roughly 2,400 spectators for games at Mississauga’s Hershey Centre, and finished last season 23-27, third in the D-League’s Atlantic Division.

More importantly, the 905 incubated talent. Before Norman Powell blossomed into a key role player for the Raptors’ playoff run, he averaged 24.9 points in eight games with the 905. This year’s roster also includes Axel Toupane, who played 32 games in Mississauga before joining the Denver Nuggets for 21 games last season.

Those players’ success signals to other hopefuls that the 905s prioritize player development as heavily as they do winning. For Burlington native and national team standout Brady Heslip, that means adding skills to complement his three-point shooting.

“I haven’t really gotten a chance to be a team’s point guard yet,” he says. “I see myself . . . as someone like J.J. Barea (of the Dallas Mavericks) that can come in and also bring scoring and outside shooting to spread the floor. But I have to be able to handle the ball and run a unit.”

The setup seems ideal for Webster-Chan, who averaged 22 points and 10 boards a game as a 10th-grader at Pope John Paul II Catholic Secondary School. From there, he moved to Huntington Prep in West Virginia, where current NBA star Andrew Wiggins later joined him.

After one season at the University of Missouri, Webster-Chan transferred to Hawaii, where he sat out a season then averaged 8.3 points per game, and led his team in three-point percentage as a redshirt sophomore.

But a coaching change in the spring of 2015 left Webster-Chan unsure about his position in the program, so he passed up his final two years of eligibility to turn pro. Last season he played 12 games with the Halifax Hurricanes of the NBL, and showed up at Raptors 905 tryouts seeking an opportunity and stability.

Stackhouse has seen Webster-Chan’s shooting touch first-hand, and is intrigued to see how his other skills will evolve with consistent playing time.

“He has the size of a shooting guard and the ability to play some point guard, and we can even post him up,” Stackhouse says. “That’s the next level: using his size advantage to go down into the post.”

Webster-Chan has starred at the Air Canada Centre before. In 2011 he won the MVP at the All Canadian Classic, an all-star game that included future Raptors 905er Sim Bhullar (now playing in Taiwan) and future first overall NBA draft pick Anthony Bennett.

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While he hopes the Raptors summon him back to Bay St., Webster-Chan says team goals come first.

“I’ll do whatever coach needs me to do to get (the job) done,” he says. “We want to win. We want to get better. That’s what everybody is here to do. Get better and win.”

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