Last season, Leicester looked settled, with a clear core and defined roles. This season, Leicester kept having to become something else, until the question became how many times a team can be pulled apart and still find a way to compete.
Before It Started
In The SLB Show’s Leicester season preview, Johnny O’Neil already sounded like a signing who might be too good to be true. Basketball scout Louie Hills was quick to question whether Leicester would ever really be his level.
I think he should have gone to a much higher league to be honest
He did. O’Neil never arrived in Leicester. Instead, he joined the Birmingham Squadron, the New Orleans Pelicans’ G League team. Denzel Mahoney played once in pre-season and did not appear again. The squad Leicester built over the summer never really materialised.
The team that did start the season struggled. The balance was wrong, and Paternostro was already searching for the right shape. After four games, Leicester had used as many starting lineups as they had across the whole of last season.
The changes came quickly. RaeQuan Battle arrived. Duke Shelton and Mike Mitchell were moved on. Don Carey came in. Aaron Menzies returned. Within weeks, Leicester had rebuilt the rotation and pulled themselves back into the season.
The Reset Fell Apart
Leicester had found a version of the team that worked. In February, that version fell apart too.
An administrative issue meant Don Carey, RaeQuan Battle and Marc Loving abruptly stopped playing for the club following an international break.
Leicester were left shorthanded heading into March. Of the nine times that an SLB player played every second of a game this season, five belonged to Travis Evee and Spencer Johnson during a three-week stretch in March.
| Player | Date | Minutes Played |
|---|---|---|
| Kino Lilly Jr | 01/05/2026 | 40 |
| Travis Evee | 20/03/2026 | 50 |
| Spencer Johnson | 20/03/2026 | 50 |
| Travis Evee | 13/03/2026 | 40 |
| Spencer Johnson | 13/03/2026 | 40 |
| Travis Evee | 07/03/2026 | 40 |
| Kino Lilly Jr | 13/02/2026 | 40 |
| Kyle Jimenez | 14/12/2025 | 40 |
| Matthew Ragsdale | 14/12/2025 | 40 |
Spencer Johnson became central to that stretch. He won Player of the Month in March for helping keep a shorthanded Leicester team competitive night after night.
Then he picked up a season-ending injury playing for Loughborough University in the BUCS final.
Flynnsanity
In Spencer Johnson’s absence, first-year pro Flynn Boardman-Raffet stepped up.
| Statistic | Before Spencer Johnson Injury | After Spencer Johnson Injury |
|---|---|---|
| Minutes Per Game | 16.6 | 35.2 |
| PTS Per Game | 6.6 | 20.9 |
| FTA Per Game | 1.9 | 8.4 |
| Usage Rate | 17.6% | 25.5% |
| eFG% | 55.6% | 53.7% |
The ball was in his hands more, his minutes more than doubled, and his scoring load jumped with it.
The rise in free-throw attempts showed that he was consistently putting pressure on defences, rather than just taking more shots. He looked like a player capable of carrying more of the offence than he had previously been given.
A month after Johnson won Player of the Month for carrying Leicester through March, Boardman-Raffet won it in April for carrying the next version of the team.
One More Version
Boardman-Raffet’s rise gave Leicester an answer, but not a whole team. Around him, the Riders were still trying to build one more version for the play-offs.
Keddy Johnson and Xavier Bledson were signed, while Mike Joiner was promoted from Loughborough Riders. In the first round, that patched-together group played with a cohesion it had no right to have. Leicester beat Sheffield and reached a two-legged semi-final against London.
That was where the season of reinvention finally reached its limit. Against the league’s best team, it was not enough.
How Many Rabbits Can Be Pulled Out of a Hat?
It was not the title defence Leicester would have planned after last year’s play-off run.
When the summer roster never materialised, Leicester reset. When Carey, Battle and Loving stopped playing, Evee and Johnson carried heavier minutes. When Spencer Johnson got hurt, Boardman-Raffet took on more of the offence. When the play-offs arrived, Keddy Johnson, Bledson and Joiner helped patch together one more version. Each reinvention became another act of survival.
At some point, the rabbits are meant to run out. For most of the season, Leicester kept reaching into the hat anyway.
