DeMar DeRozan is gone and who knows if he’s ever coming back but man, the Toronto Raptors could still use him.
The San Antonio Spurs are lucky to have him. He proved it again on Saturday night in a Boxing Day clash against his old team.
Forget James Harden – the disgruntled Houston Rockets Star that some corners of the Raptors fan base dream Toronto could somehow swing a deal for.
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DeRozan would be a smoother fit on and off the floor and might be cheaper to acquire, given he’s in the final season of his contract. Matching salaries might be a problem – DeRozan makes $27.7 million this year so making a trade that without surrendering one of Toronto’s core pieces would be nearly impossible. If not an in-season trade maybe DeRozan becomes a target in free agency, but the point stands: This version of DeRozan would fit the Raptors’ needs well.
No regrets about trading him in the first place, obviously. The rules of engagement are such that a championship justifies the means, and dealing the Raptors all-time leading scorer (not to mention Jacob Poeltl who accompanied DeRozan to San Antonio) for Kawhi Leonard in the summer of 2018 will never stop making sense as long as that banner hangs in the rafter of Scotiabank Arena.
But with Leonard taking off for the Los Angeles Clippers at first chance and the championship core getting whittled away further this past summer with the departure of Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, the Raptors are trying to win with a roster that has some holes. With Toronto in San Antonio Saturday night to take on the Spurs, it’s hard not to note how neatly the former Raptors star would help fill them.
The Raptors struggle to get to the paint and struggle to get to the free-throw line and as a result, they struggle at times to score in the half-court. Last season they ranked firmly in the middle-of-the-pack in half-court offence and it came back to haunt them when the Boston Celtics took away their No.1 ranked transition offence in the second round of the playoffs.
The Raptors’ 119-114 loss dropped them to 0-2 on the season and came down to the final minutes with the Raptors surrendering a 9-0 run and a controversial offensive foul on Pascal Siakam with 1:20 to play and Toronto up 114-110 for the pivot point.
But that wasn’t the Raptors’ only point of the game they struggled to score. They were in control of the game in the second quarter before they mustered just three field goals in the final eight minutes of the first half that allowed the Spurs to take a 61-58 lead into the break.
DeRozan can still keep an offence rolling. He finished with 27 points and eight assists – including 10 points in the final 4:35 to make sure the Spurs could close out the win and improve to 2-0.
He can play fast or he can play slow and showed his stuff early against his old team in a game that got off to a blazing pace.
By the time the track meet paused at the end of the first quarter, Toronto was leading 39-33 but DeRozan had scored 16 points on seven shots while assisting on a pair of Spurs threes. He was able to access the Raptors’ paint at will and either twist his way into an old-fashioned three-point play or rocket the ball out the perimeter for open looks as he collapsed the defence.
The Raptors are hoping to get more similar savvy offence from – say – Pascal Siakam who is showing signs. He had six assists in the Raptors opening night loss and could have had more: “The guys he’s kicking it out to need to make more shots,” said Raptor head coach Nick Nurse before the game when asked about Siakam’s play-making chops. “That’s the first thing. I think he’s made some passes and the guys are point-blank open and they need to hit them.”
Siakam finished with 16 points, eight assists and 15 rebounds against San Antonio but also five turnovers. He’ll continue to improve in his second season as a primary option and the Raptors have upside elsewhere – OG Anunoby chipped with some key triples in the second half and late-blooming Chris Boucher showed the Raptors rewarding him with a $6.5 million contract for this season might have had merit as he exploded for 22 points, 10 rebounds and seven blocked shots, while Fred VanVleet led the Raptors with 27 points.
But this version of DeRozan is the finished product. He may not take threes, but he converts twos at a high rate – 51 per cent last season – because he’s learned how to back off on tough shots in the name of getting the ball to teammates for easier looks.
And he can still finish a game too.
Anyone who thinks that he couldn’t help the Raptors or that he was in some way, shape, or form the problem in Toronto – the reason the Raptors couldn’t get over the hump – weren’t paying close enough attention. His primary sin?
He’s not an all-world defender like Leonard — the single attribute might have put the Raptors over the top, but DeRozan wasn’t holding anyone back and he could fit well into Nurse’s spread offence dotted with three-point shooters and quality defenders — especially since he committed to becoming a ball-mover and facilitator.
“I’ve been I’m impressed with a couple of things,” said Nurse. “I think he goes to the basket with a lot more speed, I think he goes right and left are much more equally distributed than he used to; he’s quick going left now too. A lot of teams used to overplay his right hand and they still do a little bit but he makes him pay by going left or he’ll reject a lot of things going left and go blasting down the lane, but I think that the other thing is he is a really good passer; he’s really become a better passer year in and year out so he doesn’t have settle for too many of those tough, tough mid-range shots, but he can score man. He’s always going to score 20-plus for a season, per game, and that’s not easy to do.”
DeRozan’s high-water mark as a scorer was the 2016-17 season when he put up 27.3 points a game. His assist total jumped from 3.9 a game to 5.2 the next season (as his scoring average fell to 23 points a game) and then 6.2 in his first season in San Antonio.
He’s one of four players to average at least 22 points, five assists and five free throws made over the past three full seasons with 200 games played – the other three are James Harden, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.
“He should get a lot of credit for that, for being able to adapt and going from a guy, 27, 28 a game to down what, 22, 23ish range now, and getting that assists up there,” said VanVleet, who was a rookie when DeRozan put up 27.3 – the second-highest in franchise history. “I think that changed a lot in my second year with the way our offence changed. He really made a concerted effort to get more guys involved It was surprising, honestly, to see how well he could pass and how well he could play make, because up to that point, all I had known of him was just to be a scorer.
“I think that’s helped his game a lot. I think it makes him much more dangerous and it makes the team more dangerous. Some guys in the league you know you can send a lot of help ’cause they’re not gonna pass unless they absolutely have to. DeMar is not one of those guys, he’s getting off it pretty free and easy and that makes the team harder to guard.”
The culture fit would be easy too. Harden loves the nightlife and has put partying without masks ahead of his professional responsibilities twice already, getting himself fined, contributing to the postponement of a game and the season isn’t even a week old.
DeRozan trained in Montana this past summer because he didn’t know anyone there.
He helped set the tone for a culture the Raptors have continued to benefit from.
“He’s one of those pivotal guys in my career, on and off the court,” said VanVleet. “Gave a lot of game and wisdom and tough love, and taught me a lot, just from watching him, watching him prepare every day, watching him practice every day, watching him work out every day, and then seeing him perform on a night-in, night-out basis. He’s really, really, really high on my list, just as a friend and guy that I’ve grown close to over the last few years. Obviously, I’ve got a lot of respect for him.”
Anyone who’s ever met him does. And he can play too as he’s showing no sign of slowing down at age 31. On the contrary, his game is still evolving and even improving.
The Raptors could use someone like that.
