Everything Derozan

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Jurassic Arc: Is DeMar DeRozan Finally Going to Embrace the 3?

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2017/8...oronto-raptors

Quality title and he drops a Dazed and Confused reference in the first line. Not super in-depth but the main point is if DeRozan trades a few midrange shots to 3's it would be a benefit for the Raps. Has quotes from DD's trainer Chris Farr. Boils down to:

Farr said they’re also working on DeRozan’s spot-up shooting from the corner and in situations where the ball is swung around. He wants DeRozan to take the open shot instead of driving straight into traffic.

If that's all he changes this season it will be a welcome improvement. Shooting a 3 off the dribble every time a defender goes under a screen is a little drastic and too much of a change to expect but who knows, we'll see if his actual shot improves along with any potentially altered decision making.

[Puffer]

Jurassic Arc: Is DeMar DeRozan Finally Going to Embrace the 3?

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2017/8...oronto-raptors

Quality title and he drops a Dazed and Confused reference in the first line. Not super in-depth but the main point is if DeRozan trades a few midrange shots to 3's it would be a benefit for the Raps. Has quotes from DD's trainer Chris Farr. Boils down to:



If that's all he changes this season it will be a welcome improvement. Shooting a 3 off the dribble every time a defender goes under a screen is a little drastic and too much of a change to expect but who knows, we'll see if his actual shot improves along with any potentially altered decision making.

That's a dangerous article. Reading the comments from Farr, DeRozan's trainer, has got me all goose bumps. I better get over it before the season starts. I don't want to set myself up for a let down.

[The Great One]

If he can add a 3 to his game. Then we're talking about a Vince Carter type of player.

[Jclaw]

This reminds me of an article from Florida spring training where everyone is undefeated and hope springs eternal. But, he has proved 'em before...

[MixxAOR]

How many attempts and % do you predict? I'll say 2 attempts and 35%

[golden]

Jurassic Arc: Is DeMar DeRozan Finally Going to Embrace the 3?

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2017/8...oronto-raptors

.

Every off-season feels like Groundhog Day....

“Everyone and their brother knows we want better ball movement,” Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said in July on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. “We don’t want to give our whole ‘what we’re going to try to do next year’ away, but again it comes down to passing the basketball and better spacing more so than, you know … one-on-one play.”

Casey said he plans on putting the ball in DeRozan’s hands more frequently as a point guard to take advantage of Kyle Lowry’s superior off-ball shooting capabilities. Systematic changes should help, but for the Raptors to maximize their playoff potential, they’ll need the men on their roster to improve their games, and it starts at the top. DeRozan will need to boost his 3-pointer, for real this time. “I have no problem shooting 3s,” DeRozan told ESPN in 2016. “I just feel like I can get to the basket at will, so it almost feels like settling.”

[Shaolin Fantastic]

I'll believe it when I see it. He can already shoot corner threes so that's not a change. If he were to somehow be able to be a ~35% shooter off threes in the pick and roll above the break he would be ridiculously hard/close to impossible to guard but I cannot see that happening at this stage.

[The Great One]

This is a straight up lie. We argued about all things Demar and the arguments went on for years.

Many people argued that Demar wasn't a finished product. Actually, it was his critics that argued that he couldn't get better because of mins played/age compared to others. We argued that he could be an all-star.....even before he became an actual all-star.

Your argument fails right there.

^This

[Shaolin Fantastic]

christ some of you people are so full of shit.


The critics of Demar have almost universally focused on shot selection. 2015 was when this argument was near its peak. In that year he took 34% of his shots between 16 feet and the 3 point line (the contested ones of which I've termed the "demoron" variety).

There were absolutely people who defended the way derozan was playing at that time.


The next year that number dropped to 25% and all of that difference was re-distributed into shots within 10 feet. Shockingly, this was his most efficient offensive season since his rookie year.


People who were not fans of Demar's game were (CORRECTLY) calling for him to cut out the dumbass shots. Some of us didn't think he had the awareness to do that. Then he did and became a star. Glad I was wrong about that.

His shot selection hasn't changed significantly, so this is just wrong. He also shoots more now, and more bad shots go along with that.

His last season where he wasn't really at all-star level was 2012-13.

2012-13 Shot Distribution:
0-3 FT: 20.2%
3-10 FT: 14.9%
10-16 FT: 18.6%
16-23 FT: 36.5%
Average FG Distance: 13.0 ft

2016-17 Shot Distribution
0-3 FT: 15.8%
3-10 FT: 21.6%
10-16 FT: 23.6%
16-23 FT: 31.0%
Average FG Distance: 12.6 ft

So that's a marginal at best change in shot distribution. What has happened is that because of his improved footwork, ball-handling and overall scoring ability he was able to gradually take on a larger usage/scoring role (usage has gone from 24.2% in 2012-13 to 34.3% now which is a massive increase) while improving his efficiency (52.3 TS% to 55.2 TS%), primarily via using more pick and roll possessions. However anyone who thinks he's stopped taking what some would consider "dumb" shots, is wrong. In fact you could actually argue he takes a lot of higher difficulty shots now, especially since the percentage of his shots that are assisted has fallen drastically from 52.7% to 18.8%.

The main criticism of DeMar was that he didn't have the on-ball skills to be a high volume scorer, and would not be a good contributor unless he added a three point shot that allowed him to play off ball. Instead of doing that, he actually doubled down on what he was already doing while adding a lot of layers of talent and skills on top of it to make him more effective and able to take more shots from the same areas while also working as a lead ball-handler.

I do remember a lot of people thought he had peaked around 2012-13 and were really upset with the contract he got (4yr/~40M) because they assumed he couldn't get any or much better.

[golden]

His shot selection hasn't changed significantly, so this is just wrong. He also shoots more now, and more bad shots go along with that.

His last season where he wasn't really at all-star level was 2012-13.

2012-13 Shot Distribution:
0-3 FT: 20.2%
3-10 FT: 14.9%
10-16 FT: 18.6%
16-23 FT: 36.5%
Average FG Distance: 13.0 ft

2016-17 Shot Distribution
0-3 FT: 15.8%
3-10 FT: 21.6%
10-16 FT: 23.6%
16-23 FT: 31.0%
Average FG Distance: 12.6 ft

So that's a marginal at best change in shot distribution. What has happened is that because of his improved footwork, ball-handling and overall scoring ability he was able to gradually take on a larger usage/scoring role (usage has gone from 24.2% in 2012-13 to 34.3% now which is a massive increase) while improving his efficiency (52.3 TS% to 55.2 TS%), primarily via using more pick and roll possessions. However anyone who thinks he's stopped taking what some would consider "dumb" shots, is wrong. In fact you could actually argue he takes a lot of higher difficulty shots now, especially since the percentage of his shots that are assisted has fallen drastically from 52.7% to 18.8%.

The main criticism of DeMar was that he didn't have the on-ball skills to be a high volume scorer, and would not be a good contributor unless he added a three point shot that allowed him to play off ball. Instead of doing that, he actually doubled down on what he was already doing while adding a lot of layers of talent and skills on top of it to make him more effective and able to take more shots from the same areas while also working as a lead ball-handler.

I do remember a lot of people thought he had peaked around 2012-13 and were really upset with the contract he got (4yr/~40M) because they assumed he couldn't get any or much better.

The other thing that's happened is that the team/Casey has completely tailored the offense to take advantage of DeMar's strengths and minimizing his flaws on offense (3-pt shot, passing, decision-making,...) & defense (effort, foot-speed,...).

I'm a big supporter of DeMar but I can also acknowledge that the problem he poses is that his flaws factor heavily into raps roster construction & systemic issues (i.e. need to have more lights-out shooters on the roster, stretch bigs, lock-down wing defenders, can't play inside-out, can't run cutters, can feed rolling bigs, etc....) which is a bigger problem the modern NBA than it would have been 5-10 years ago.

[Chr1s1anL]

The other thing that's happened is that the team/Casey has completely tailored the offense to take advantage of DeMar's strengths and minimizing his flaws on offense (3-pt shot, passing, decision-making,...) & defense (effort, foot-speed,...).

I'm a big supporter of DeMar but I can also acknowledge that the problem he poses is that his flaws factor heavily into raps roster construction & systemic issues (i.e. need to have more lights-out shooters on the roster, stretch bigs, lock-down wing defenders, can't play inside-out, can't run cutters, can feed rolling bigs, etc....) which is a bigger problem the modern NBA than it would have been 5-10 years ago.

Every team built a roster around their best players. It's not something that just Casey/Raptors do. You built a team to cover your best players weakness'. So they can go out and do what they're best at. Raptors have been pretty successful doing just that.

[Chr1s1anL]

It's funny that the narrative has gone from "DD is not good enough to built a team around and will never be." to "We always knew DD could be an all-nba player if he changed his game."

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[Shaolin Fantastic]

Every team built a roster around their best players. It's not something that just Casey/Raptors do. You built a team to cover your best players weakness'. So they can go out and do what they're best at. Raptors have been pretty successful doing just that.

It's funny that the narrative has gone from "DD is not good enough to built a team around and will never be." to "We always knew DD could be an all-nba player if he changed his game."

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I agree with you, only thing I'd say is I don't think you can build a championship contender around DeMar/Lowry unless all 5 starters are close to their level (think 2004 Pistons).

But yeah. It's funny how people act like DeMar is cheating because he has a system built around him. Isn't that what Steph has in Golden State now (same with Klay for that matter)? That was a large part of what made him go from just an all-star to arguably the best player in the league during his MVP seasons. Building around, and tailoring a system your best players is part of smart management.

[DanH]

It's funny that the narrative has gone from "DD is not good enough to built a team around and will never be." to "We always knew DD could be an all-nba player if he changed his game."

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I don't think anyone said that. He was pretty bad in his first 3-4 years, and many thought he would be much better if he changed his approach. He's exceeded expectations for sure. Heck, most of his supporters said stuff like "he can be a very good player, but expecting him to be all-NBA is silly." No one expected this level of success. Definitely not me. But to say he shut his critics up by doing exactly what his critics asked of him (and also getting much better along the way) is a strange way to put it.

You can quote his FGA distribution all you like, but FGA distribution doesn't tell the whole story either. He's so much more aggressive a player than he once was, and leveraging attacks versus his midrange game is much better than the settling he used to do (ie taking the jumpers without having the slashing attacks mixed in to make it effective). You can argue he wasn't capable of it then, but it seemed to me he was capable, or if he wasn't he should still have taken fewer shots - not that it really mattered early on, as the team was developing him, but in 13-14 (his first all star season) and 14-15 (a hugely disappointing follow up season, even before the injury), he was not driving the ball nearly enough. He went from 7.4 and 7.9 drives per game in those seasons to 11.6 and 10.5 the past two seasons, near the top of the league. That's an incredible improvement, made a huge difference in his overall game (WS/48 jumped up to the .160's after barely topping .140 in 13-14 and falling below average in 14-15; ORPM jumped to +2.2-2.3 the past two seasons after floating near zero the prior two)) and was a big reason why I was fully behind throwing a giant contract at him last summer.

[Chr1s1anL]

I don't think anyone said that. He was pretty bad in his first 3-4 years, and many thought he would be much better if he changed his approach. He's exceeded expectations for sure. Heck, most of his supporters said stuff like "he can be a very good player, but expecting him to be all-NBA is silly." No one expected this level of success. Definitely not me. But to say he shut his critics up by doing exactly what his critics asked of him (and also getting much better along the way) is a strange way to put it.

You can quote his FGA distribution all you like, but FGA distribution doesn't tell the whole story either. He's so much more aggressive a player than he once was, and leveraging attacks versus his midrange game is much better than the settling he used to do (ie taking the jumpers without having the slashing attacks mixed in to make it effective). You can argue he wasn't capable of it then, but it seemed to me he was capable, or if he wasn't he should still have taken fewer shots - not that it really mattered early on, as the team was developing him, but in 13-14 (his first all star season) and 14-15 (a hugely disappointing follow up season, even before the injury), he was not driving the ball nearly enough. He went from 7.4 and 7.9 drives per game in those seasons to 11.6 and 10.5 the past two seasons, near the top of the league. That's an incredible improvement, made a huge difference in his overall game (WS/48 jumped up to the .160's after barely topping .140 in 13-14 and falling below average in 14-15; ORPM jumped to +2.2-2.3 the past two seasons after floating near zero the prior two)) and was a big reason why I was fully behind throwing a giant contract at him last summer.

Speak for yourself. I am not at all surprised with what he has achieved. You can spin it however you like. Like I always say you can use stats to fit any narrative. Also just cause his free throw attempts went up doesn't mean he is driving that much more. Deebo probably gets fouled on his jumper more than any other player in the league. Fact is he proved everyone wrong who thought he was a finish product 4 years ago. Which includes you. You cant just write someone off as a 23 year old and come back 4 years later and say "Oh I knew he could do this but, he just needed to change his game". Especially when his game has even changed.

The mark of great player is when the D knows what your going to do but, cant do anything about it. Pretty sure the scouting report on Deebo hasn't changed that much over the last couple years.

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