The Hamilton Honey Badgers, seriously loading up for the final few league games and playoffs, have signed their first player who's had actual floor time in the NBA.

After signing a 10-day contract with Memphis in March, 2018, point guard Xavier Rathan-Mayes played five games for the Grizzlies, averaging 5.8 points, 3.6 assists and 23.6 minutes.

The 25-year-old from Toronto, who played high school ball with Andrew Wiggins at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, spent the past two seasons mostly in the NBA G-League averaging a strong 34.7 minutes, 15.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 6.7 assists.

Rathan-Mayes will practise with the team for the first time Saturday at Mohawk College and suit up for Sunday's pivotal game against Edmonton Stingers (4 p.m. at FirstOntario Centre), which could decide second place in the Canadian Elite Basketball League.

He'll go to point guard with Ricky Tarrant Jr., who leads the team in assists and is second in scoring, shifting to the No. 2 guard. The CEBL is a guard-heavy league with often three, and sometimes four, on the floor at a time.

Rathan-Mayes is a major acquisition for the Badgers, underscoring the major resculpting of the team for the season's final five games and single-elimination playoffs.

It's likely the Stingers and Badgers will meet in the first round of the Final Four style championship tournament, Aug. 22-25 in Saskatoon.

In the past week the club has signed 35-year-old American point guard Cliff Clinkscales, who played for DePaul and is a former NBL Canada all-star, plus four veteran Canadian pros: Rathan-Mayes; all-round forward Murphy Burnatowski , who played his final two years of high school in Hamilton; forward Keanau Post, who played at Missouri; and guard Duane Notice who spent last season averaging 10 points per game for the Raptors 905 G League team, and played two games for the Raptors' Summer League team this month.

And on Friday, the club announced it had finally signed forward MiKyle McIntosh, their Number 1 choice in March's CEBL draft.

McIntosh, a native of Pickering who played at Illinois State and Oregon, spent last season with the Raptors 905 in the NBA G League.

"It's a vastly different lineup now," Honey Badgers president John Lashway said of the overhaul.

"This is how Chantal (Vallée, head coach) and I planned it. Before the season we looked at the schedule as three different stretches.

"There would be people who came in May who would only play in May while other players were finishing with their pro teams. Then there would be a group who'd come in June and July.

"Then there'd be the guys who wanted six weeks rest from their last season during the summer but would come in for the final third as they're gearing up for the next season. Some players would also be leaving then for fall leagues that start earlier. The studs come in now.

"It kind of reduced from three to two parts for us because most of our players stayed around most of the season."

Guards Justin Edwards and Adam Presutti and forward Erik Nissen are among those who were here for the majority of the regular season but are no longer on the roster.

Such lineup liquidity is an earmark of most professional basketball leagues outside the NBA although, as Lashway points out, some CEBL teams chose a different model and have decided to ride a fairly constant roster from wire to wire. The Badgers themselves had been fairly static until this recent outburst of activity.

CEBL teams had until their 15th game to declare final rosters, and for Hamilton that was Thursday night. Players are still allowed to be signed, and may play, after that deadline but are not eligible for the post-season.

In the 6-foot-4 Rathan-Mayes, the Honey Badgers landed a player who appears to be still on the ascent and who'll play his 101st pro game Sunday, after finishing at Florida State in 2017.

In those two years he's spent 68 games in the NBA G League between Texas and Westchester, 17 in Greece with AEK Athens, another 10 in Israel and five in the NBA.

He's averaged nearly 5.6 assists per game, and 1.4 successfullthree-pointers.

He followed his stepfather Tharon Mayes, who also played briefly in the NBA, to Florida State and finished his career ranked fourth in school history with 451 career assists.

In his first full season, he scored a phenomenal 30 points in the final 4:38 of a game against rival Miami Hurricanes.

Badger fans at FirstOntario Centre probably won't get to see anything quite that outrageous, but they wouldn't mind at least a little hint of it.

smilton@thespec.com

905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec

Steve Milton | July 19, 2019 | The Hamilton Spectator