Everything Derozan

[Miekenstien]

This. This 'good enough to make it to the conference Finals' thing.

DeMar wasn't. The guys around him were.

impossible to say. what is possible is that a demar lead team made it to the conference finals. yours is baseless conjecture


edit: my bad. thought you were saying that they could have done that without demar.

[planetmars]

Who on earth doesn't know that DD played like shit in round one and two?

He didn't just play like sh!t. He had one of the worst playoff performances ever. The combination of shot attempts, efficiency and his defense were out of this world bad.

[DanH]

One of my biggest issues with DeMar has always been, and continues to be, the limitations he places on your roster. In order for a DeMar lineup to be successful against a good team, your point guard, small forward, and power forward, have to all be able to hit 3s at a high rate and be good to great defenders, or it doesn't work. That's why JJ lineups with DeMar had problems, that's why Scola lineups with DeMar had problems.

I skipped over this before but this is a point I want to address. This is not directly a counter to you or your point, more using it as a springboard.

I have a theory about NBA team success. You need two things - you need high production players - ultimately you need players who can score points in heavy doses, who can grab lots of rebounds, etc. Need to fill the stat sheet somehow, and the reality of the game is that every play run has a primary option, and a seconday, and so on, in terms of who scores and where and how. So naturally there will unavoidably be a need for players who can score as primary options on plays - if you don't have that, you can't force the defence to STOP those primary options and you can't generate secondary and tertiary scoring.

Production is important. DD is a pretty effective volume producer (certainly this year he was). Valanciunas is an elite production guy. Lowry is OK, though we see he can't carry heavy volume (he completely fell apart last season when DD was hurt and he transitioned into a volume role he's not suited to).

But production is only half the equation. The development of NBA stats tells the story here - we've always tracked production very well, and we have loads of advanced stats (WS, PER, WP, individual ORTG and DRTG) built off of production. But the new age of NBA stats is impact. In other words, regardless of the individual production, can players impact the game, impact how their teammates play, impact how hard it is for the opposition to score? This yielded the rise of on-off court splits, adjusted plus minus and other stats like RPM that attempt to capture that.

It's a little more difficult to turn into a hard number, but it's crucial just the same. Lowry is insanely impactful, top 10 in the league by some measures. Patterson is a prime example. CoJo too. Guys that help you win, but don't produce enough (Lowry is borderline) to be enough on their own.

True superstars do both. They produce huge portions of their teams' offences, and also bend the game as a whole to their will just by being on the floor. But those players are rare. Like, 5-10 in the league at once, max. Usually not even that many. And if you don't have one, the odds of making the finals, let alone winning a championship, are long as hell.

Now, my point is, teams need both of these things. You need production and you need high impact guys. And when you have a superstar, it is really easy to fill in the blanks on those. You can get guys that balance mediocre contributions in both categories because you've got elite contribution from one guy in both already. And have a few specialist types that provide one or the other.

But if you don't have one of those guys (and you usually don't), it's not so easy. You need to have some top level production guys just to manage enough scoring to be in games. And you obviously need those impact guys who don't necessarily provide that production if you hope to have any real success. So if you are stuck with no production-and-impact superstar (and as great as Lowry is, by this definition of superstar he falls short), you have to patch together guys who can fill those holes.

You need high production guys, but the league is littered with high production, negative impact players. High volume shooting, low efficiency, me-first players. Not good. So you have to hunt out the rare (though not as rare as a superstar, not by a long shot) high production, neutral impact player. DeRozan is the poster boy for this - he'd fall well short last season but in this one he was pretty ideal in this sense. Scores with volume and decent efficiency, moves the ball to allow for secondary scoring, contributes with other boxscore production like rebounding, and doesn't completely tank your defence.

Valanciunas is another example, actually. He provides tremendous efficiency scoring, great rebounding production, and his defensive improvements have made him a slightly positive impact player (almost exactly break-even in RPM this season, just like DeMar). This is a very valuable player - elite production is valuable even if impact stats suggest he's not a game changing player (yet, says the optimist in me - his impact stats were quite poor a couple years ago so he's trending in a very nice direction).

Lowry can produce, but he's best suited to a role where he doesn't have to and can play off the rhythm of the game and pick his spots, and pour his energy into being the all-around impact player he can be. He's the closest thing the Raptors have to a superstar, because when he is going through a hot streak and is producing high efficiency high volume scoring on top of his usual impact shenanigans, the Raptors can look unbeatable. But he's never been able to provide that volume production with consistency. And that's fine, he's come far beyond what he was ever supposed to as an impact player, and to expect him to be a star scorer is simply not a realistic expectation long term.

In any case, what I'm trying to say here is to support players like Lowry, who can't carry a primary offensive role, and players like Patterson and CoJo, who can't really even carry a secondary offensive role, but all of whom nonetheless provide immense value to a team via their ability to impact a game in ways other than raw production, you have to find that production from other sources. And those sources are not going to be high impact guys too - or else they would be a superstar, and you aren't worrying about this in the first place.

Therein lies the path to success for any team that doesn't luck into a top 5 talent. Finding ways to get top level point production from parts of the roster, to allow for team impact guys to help you win from other parts of the roster, without one group completely tanking the other (Biyombo's an example of a positive impact guy who is almost bad enough production wise to cancel that out, if not for his rebounding keeping him afloat). And of course, having all of those pieces fit together, in roles they belong in, and playing in a system that emphasizes their strengths and hides their weaknesses.

All of this to say that although DeMar does not really display much in way of value when you look at his impact on team performance (and neither, really, does JV just yet), that does not disqualify him from being a valuable player. Nor from being worth bringing back, even on a max (or max-ish) deal. Max deals have never been just for superstars, not for as long as they've existed. Heck, they only exist to force superstars to make less money than they otherwise would.

So, yes, it would be nice if DeMar were a significantly positive impact guy. But if he were, he'd be a real superstar and we'd be one of the few lucky teams in the league to have a guy like that. As it is, we are one of the few teams in the league lucky enough to have a guy like Lowry (though obviously not as lucky as CLE, GSW, OKC or SAS, for example). And being able to surround him with high production guys while not having to take a big negative impact hit to do so is key to this team's success. And is really the only path to more success outside of lucking into one of those top guys somehow. Sure you look to add as many high-impact guys as possible with as much producing ability as possible (Millsap, for example, would be another Lowry-type addition who would really help the team) but you still need guys who can provide that primary offensive production.

And hey, if JV ends up one of those insanely good production-and-impact guys, or we get one some other way, then sure, DD's high production skill set might become redundant. But the good news is, that means there are 25 or so teams that need to build with the patchwork method we are currently stuck with, who would find a guy like DeRozan quite valuable. That certainly requires DeRozan to keep up his improved production from this season, but there's no real reason to assume he won't - it was largely an effect of his improved decision making and better plays run for him compared to the prior couple of seasons, and he's just entering his prime, not leaving it.

[OldSkoolCool]

impossible to say. what is possible is that a demar lead team made it to the conference finals. yours is baseless conjecture


edit: my bad. thought you were saying that they could have done that without demar.

Be careful about correlation and causation

"Scola played significant minutes on a 56 win team"

And

"Scola was a big factor for winning 56 games"

[DanH]

And I guess I missed over the point you started with - my thought on that was just that when you are patching together your production guys and your impact guys, it is always going to be harder to make everything fit than if you have a superstar to build around. So it is no surprise that since the Raptors managed to find a high volume producer that he would come with some limitations. Heck, JV certainly has limitations in much the same way - just look at how his usefulness was almost completely sabotaged by pairing him with Scola all year. Sure, Scola was bad, but much worse was his fit beside Jonas.

[Miekenstien]

Be careful about correlation and causation

"Scola played significant minutes on a 56 win team"

And

"Scola was a big factor for winning 56 games"

ridiculous

[Gambino]

Be careful about correlation and causation

"Scola played significant minutes on a 56 win team"

And

"Scola was a big factor for winning 56 games"

Ok between this and your comment that DeMar isn't worth even $1. I'm just going to assume you're a troll from this point forwards. The avatar doesn't help either.

[Apollo]

He didn't just play like sh!t. He had one of the worst playoff performances ever. The combination of shot attempts, efficiency and his defense were out of this world bad.

He's clearly coming back. How does repeating his poor play over and over and over change a thing? He played bad in the first two rounds and good in the finals. No one is crowning him playoff hero.

[Axel]

I skipped over this before but this is a point I want to address. This is not directly a counter to you or your point, more using it as a springboard.

I have a theory about NBA team success. You need two things - you need high production players - ultimately you need players who can score points in heavy doses, who can grab lots of rebounds, etc. Need to fill the stat sheet somehow, and the reality of the game is that every play run has a primary option, and a seconday, and so on, in terms of who scores and where and how. So naturally there will unavoidably be a need for players who can score as primary options on plays - if you don't have that, you can't force the defence to STOP those primary options and you can't generate secondary and tertiary scoring.

Production is important. DD is a pretty effective volume producer (certainly this year he was). Valanciunas is an elite production guy. Lowry is OK, though we see he can't carry heavy volume (he completely fell apart last season when DD was hurt and he transitioned into a volume role he's not suited to).

But production is only half the equation. The development of NBA stats tells the story here - we've always tracked production very well, and we have loads of advanced stats (WS, PER, WP, individual ORTG and DRTG) built off of production. But the new age of NBA stats is impact. In other words, regardless of the individual production, can players impact the game, impact how their teammates play, impact how hard it is for the opposition to score? This yielded the rise of on-off court splits, adjusted plus minus and other stats like RPM that attempt to capture that.

It's a little more difficult to turn into a hard number, but it's crucial just the same. Lowry is insanely impactful, top 10 in the league by some measures. Patterson is a prime example. CoJo too. Guys that help you win, but don't produce enough (Lowry is borderline) to be enough on their own.

True superstars do both. They produce huge portions of their teams' offences, and also bend the game as a whole to their will just by being on the floor. But those players are rare. Like, 5-10 in the league at once, max. Usually not even that many. And if you don't have one, the odds of making the finals, let alone winning a championship, are long as hell.

Now, my point is, teams need both of these things. You need production and you need high impact guys. And when you have a superstar, it is really easy to fill in the blanks on those. You can get guys that balance mediocre contributions in both categories because you've got elite contribution from one guy in both already. And have a few specialist types that provide one or the other.

But if you don't have one of those guys (and you usually don't), it's not so easy. You need to have some top level production guys just to manage enough scoring to be in games. And you obviously need those impact guys who don't necessarily provide that production if you hope to have any real success. So if you are stuck with no production-and-impact superstar (and as great as Lowry is, by this definition of superstar he falls short), you have to patch together guys who can fill those holes.

You need high production guys, but the league is littered with high production, negative impact players. High volume shooting, low efficiency, me-first players. Not good. So you have to hunt out the rare (though not as rare as a superstar, not by a long shot) high production, neutral impact player. DeRozan is the poster boy for this - he'd fall well short last season but in this one he was pretty ideal in this sense. Scores with volume and decent efficiency, moves the ball to allow for secondary scoring, contributes with other boxscore production like rebounding, and doesn't completely tank your defence.

Valanciunas is another example, actually. He provides tremendous efficiency scoring, great rebounding production, and his defensive improvements have made him a slightly positive impact player (almost exactly break-even in RPM this season, just like DeMar). This is a very valuable player - elite production is valuable even if impact stats suggest he's not a game changing player (yet, says the optimist in me - his impact stats were quite poor a couple years ago so he's trending in a very nice direction).

Lowry can produce, but he's best suited to a role where he doesn't have to and can play off the rhythm of the game and pick his spots, and pour his energy into being the all-around impact player he can be. He's the closest thing the Raptors have to a superstar, because when he is going through a hot streak and is producing high efficiency high volume scoring on top of his usual impact shenanigans, the Raptors can look unbeatable. But he's never been able to provide that volume production with consistency. And that's fine, he's come far beyond what he was ever supposed to as an impact player, and to expect him to be a star scorer is simply not a realistic expectation long term.

In any case, what I'm trying to say here is to support players like Lowry, who can't carry a primary offensive role, and players like Patterson and CoJo, who can't really even carry a secondary offensive role, but all of whom nonetheless provide immense value to a team via their ability to impact a game in ways other than raw production, you have to find that production from other sources. And those sources are not going to be high impact guys too - or else they would be a superstar, and you aren't worrying about this in the first place.

Therein lies the path to success for any team that doesn't luck into a top 5 talent. Finding ways to get top level point production from parts of the roster, to allow for team impact guys to help you win from other parts of the roster, without one group completely tanking the other (Biyombo's an example of a positive impact guy who is almost bad enough production wise to cancel that out, if not for his rebounding keeping him afloat). And of course, having all of those pieces fit together, in roles they belong in, and playing in a system that emphasizes their strengths and hides their weaknesses.

All of this to say that although DeMar does not really display much in way of value when you look at his impact on team performance (and neither, really, does JV just yet), that does not disqualify him from being a valuable player. Nor from being worth bringing back, even on a max (or max-ish) deal. Max deals have never been just for superstars, not for as long as they've existed. Heck, they only exist to force superstars to make less money than they otherwise would.

So, yes, it would be nice if DeMar were a significantly positive impact guy. But if he were, he'd be a real superstar and we'd be one of the few lucky teams in the league to have a guy like that. As it is, we are one of the few teams in the league lucky enough to have a guy like Lowry (though obviously not as lucky as CLE, GSW, OKC or SAS, for example). And being able to surround him with high production guys while not having to take a big negative impact hit to do so is key to this team's success. And is really the only path to more success outside of lucking into one of those top guys somehow. Sure you look to add as many high-impact guys as possible with as much producing ability as possible (Millsap, for example, would be another Lowry-type addition who would really help the team) but you still need guys who can provide that primary offensive production.

And hey, if JV ends up one of those insanely good production-and-impact guys, or we get one some other way, then sure, DD's high production skill set might become redundant. But the good news is, that means there are 25 or so teams that need to build with the patchwork method we are currently stuck with, who would find a guy like DeRozan quite valuable. That certainly requires DeRozan to keep up his improved production from this season, but there's no real reason to assume he won't - it was largely an effect of his improved decision making and better plays run for him compared to the prior couple of seasons, and he's just entering his prime, not leaving it.

So what you are saying is #InBrunoWeTrust #Bruno2018

[planetmars]

He's clearly coming back. How does repeating his poor play over and over and over change a thing? He played bad in the first two rounds and good in the finals. No one is crowning him playoff hero.

He's probably coming back.. but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

[Apollo]

Touche.

[Joey]

I skipped over this before but this is a point I want to address. This is not directly a counter to you or your point, more using it as a springboard.

I have a theory about NBA team success. You need two things - you need high production players - ultimately you need players who can score points in heavy doses, who can grab lots of rebounds, etc. Need to fill the stat sheet somehow, and the reality of the game is that every play run has a primary option, and a seconday, and so on, in terms of who scores and where and how. So naturally there will unavoidably be a need for players who can score as primary options on plays - if you don't have that, you can't force the defence to STOP those primary options and you can't generate secondary and tertiary scoring.

Production is important. DD is a pretty effective volume producer (certainly this year he was). Valanciunas is an elite production guy. Lowry is OK, though we see he can't carry heavy volume (he completely fell apart last season when DD was hurt and he transitioned into a volume role he's not suited to).

But production is only half the equation. The development of NBA stats tells the story here - we've always tracked production very well, and we have loads of advanced stats (WS, PER, WP, individual ORTG and DRTG) built off of production. But the new age of NBA stats is impact. In other words, regardless of the individual production, can players impact the game, impact how their teammates play, impact how hard it is for the opposition to score? This yielded the rise of on-off court splits, adjusted plus minus and other stats like RPM that attempt to capture that.

It's a little more difficult to turn into a hard number, but it's crucial just the same. Lowry is insanely impactful, top 10 in the league by some measures. Patterson is a prime example. CoJo too. Guys that help you win, but don't produce enough (Lowry is borderline) to be enough on their own.

True superstars do both. They produce huge portions of their teams' offences, and also bend the game as a whole to their will just by being on the floor. But those players are rare. Like, 5-10 in the league at once, max. Usually not even that many. And if you don't have one, the odds of making the finals, let alone winning a championship, are long as hell.

Now, my point is, teams need both of these things. You need production and you need high impact guys. And when you have a superstar, it is really easy to fill in the blanks on those. You can get guys that balance mediocre contributions in both categories because you've got elite contribution from one guy in both already. And have a few specialist types that provide one or the other.

But if you don't have one of those guys (and you usually don't), it's not so easy. You need to have some top level production guys just to manage enough scoring to be in games. And you obviously need those impact guys who don't necessarily provide that production if you hope to have any real success. So if you are stuck with no production-and-impact superstar (and as great as Lowry is, by this definition of superstar he falls short), you have to patch together guys who can fill those holes.

You need high production guys, but the league is littered with high production, negative impact players. High volume shooting, low efficiency, me-first players. Not good. So you have to hunt out the rare (though not as rare as a superstar, not by a long shot) high production, neutral impact player. DeRozan is the poster boy for this - he'd fall well short last season but in this one he was pretty ideal in this sense. Scores with volume and decent efficiency, moves the ball to allow for secondary scoring, contributes with other boxscore production like rebounding, and doesn't completely tank your defence.

Valanciunas is another example, actually. He provides tremendous efficiency scoring, great rebounding production, and his defensive improvements have made him a slightly positive impact player (almost exactly break-even in RPM this season, just like DeMar). This is a very valuable player - elite production is valuable even if impact stats suggest he's not a game changing player (yet, says the optimist in me - his impact stats were quite poor a couple years ago so he's trending in a very nice direction).

Lowry can produce, but he's best suited to a role where he doesn't have to and can play off the rhythm of the game and pick his spots, and pour his energy into being the all-around impact player he can be. He's the closest thing the Raptors have to a superstar, because when he is going through a hot streak and is producing high efficiency high volume scoring on top of his usual impact shenanigans, the Raptors can look unbeatable. But he's never been able to provide that volume production with consistency. And that's fine, he's come far beyond what he was ever supposed to as an impact player, and to expect him to be a star scorer is simply not a realistic expectation long term.

In any case, what I'm trying to say here is to support players like Lowry, who can't carry a primary offensive role, and players like Patterson and CoJo, who can't really even carry a secondary offensive role, but all of whom nonetheless provide immense value to a team via their ability to impact a game in ways other than raw production, you have to find that production from other sources. And those sources are not going to be high impact guys too - or else they would be a superstar, and you aren't worrying about this in the first place.

Therein lies the path to success for any team that doesn't luck into a top 5 talent. Finding ways to get top level point production from parts of the roster, to allow for team impact guys to help you win from other parts of the roster, without one group completely tanking the other (Biyombo's an example of a positive impact guy who is almost bad enough production wise to cancel that out, if not for his rebounding keeping him afloat). And of course, having all of those pieces fit together, in roles they belong in, and playing in a system that emphasizes their strengths and hides their weaknesses.

All of this to say that although DeMar does not really display much in way of value when you look at his impact on team performance (and neither, really, does JV just yet), that does not disqualify him from being a valuable player. Nor from being worth bringing back, even on a max (or max-ish) deal. Max deals have never been just for superstars, not for as long as they've existed. Heck, they only exist to force superstars to make less money than they otherwise would.

So, yes, it would be nice if DeMar were a significantly positive impact guy. But if he were, he'd be a real superstar and we'd be one of the few lucky teams in the league to have a guy like that. As it is, we are one of the few teams in the league lucky enough to have a guy like Lowry (though obviously not as lucky as CLE, GSW, OKC or SAS, for example). And being able to surround him with high production guys while not having to take a big negative impact hit to do so is key to this team's success. And is really the only path to more success outside of lucking into one of those top guys somehow. Sure you look to add as many high-impact guys as possible with as much producing ability as possible (Millsap, for example, would be another Lowry-type addition who would really help the team) but you still need guys who can provide that primary offensive production.

And hey, if JV ends up one of those insanely good production-and-impact guys, or we get one some other way, then sure, DD's high production skill set might become redundant. But the good news is, that means there are 25 or so teams that need to build with the patchwork method we are currently stuck with, who would find a guy like DeRozan quite valuable. That certainly requires DeRozan to keep up his improved production from this season, but there's no real reason to assume he won't - it was largely an effect of his improved decision making and better plays run for him compared to the prior couple of seasons, and he's just entering his prime, not leaving it.

This is everything I've ever wanted to say, but didn't know how to ... Thanks for posting this Dan!

[KeonClark]

This is everything I've ever wanted to say, but didn't know how to ... Thanks for posting this Dan!

I wouldn't have seen that manifesto if you didn't quote it. Great post, almost made me able to accept that max or close to it deal coming soon.

[Mindlessness]

I skipped over this before but this is a point I want to address. This is not directly a counter to you or your point, more using it as a springboard.

I have a theory about NBA team success. You need two things - you need high production players - ultimately you need players who can score points in heavy doses, who can grab lots of rebounds, etc. Need to fill the stat sheet somehow, and the reality of the game is that every play run has a primary option, and a seconday, and so on, in terms of who scores and where and how. So naturally there will unavoidably be a need for players who can score as primary options on plays - if you don't have that, you can't force the defence to STOP those primary options and you can't generate secondary and tertiary scoring.

Production is important. DD is a pretty effective volume producer (certainly this year he was). Valanciunas is an elite production guy. Lowry is OK, though we see he can't carry heavy volume (he completely fell apart last season when DD was hurt and he transitioned into a volume role he's not suited to).

But production is only half the equation. The development of NBA stats tells the story here - we've always tracked production very well, and we have loads of advanced stats (WS, PER, WP, individual ORTG and DRTG) built off of production. But the new age of NBA stats is impact. In other words, regardless of the individual production, can players impact the game, impact how their teammates play, impact how hard it is for the opposition to score? This yielded the rise of on-off court splits, adjusted plus minus and other stats like RPM that attempt to capture that.

It's a little more difficult to turn into a hard number, but it's crucial just the same. Lowry is insanely impactful, top 10 in the league by some measures. Patterson is a prime example. CoJo too. Guys that help you win, but don't produce enough (Lowry is borderline) to be enough on their own.

True superstars do both. They produce huge portions of their teams' offences, and also bend the game as a whole to their will just by being on the floor. But those players are rare. Like, 5-10 in the league at once, max. Usually not even that many. And if you don't have one, the odds of making the finals, let alone winning a championship, are long as hell.

Now, my point is, teams need both of these things. You need production and you need high impact guys. And when you have a superstar, it is really easy to fill in the blanks on those. You can get guys that balance mediocre contributions in both categories because you've got elite contribution from one guy in both already. And have a few specialist types that provide one or the other.

But if you don't have one of those guys (and you usually don't), it's not so easy. You need to have some top level production guys just to manage enough scoring to be in games. And you obviously need those impact guys who don't necessarily provide that production if you hope to have any real success. So if you are stuck with no production-and-impact superstar (and as great as Lowry is, by this definition of superstar he falls short), you have to patch together guys who can fill those holes.

You need high production guys, but the league is littered with high production, negative impact players. High volume shooting, low efficiency, me-first players. Not good. So you have to hunt out the rare (though not as rare as a superstar, not by a long shot) high production, neutral impact player. DeRozan is the poster boy for this - he'd fall well short last season but in this one he was pretty ideal in this sense. Scores with volume and decent efficiency, moves the ball to allow for secondary scoring, contributes with other boxscore production like rebounding, and doesn't completely tank your defence.

Valanciunas is another example, actually. He provides tremendous efficiency scoring, great rebounding production, and his defensive improvements have made him a slightly positive impact player (almost exactly break-even in RPM this season, just like DeMar). This is a very valuable player - elite production is valuable even if impact stats suggest he's not a game changing player (yet, says the optimist in me - his impact stats were quite poor a couple years ago so he's trending in a very nice direction).

Lowry can produce, but he's best suited to a role where he doesn't have to and can play off the rhythm of the game and pick his spots, and pour his energy into being the all-around impact player he can be. He's the closest thing the Raptors have to a superstar, because when he is going through a hot streak and is producing high efficiency high volume scoring on top of his usual impact shenanigans, the Raptors can look unbeatable. But he's never been able to provide that volume production with consistency. And that's fine, he's come far beyond what he was ever supposed to as an impact player, and to expect him to be a star scorer is simply not a realistic expectation long term.

In any case, what I'm trying to say here is to support players like Lowry, who can't carry a primary offensive role, and players like Patterson and CoJo, who can't really even carry a secondary offensive role, but all of whom nonetheless provide immense value to a team via their ability to impact a game in ways other than raw production, you have to find that production from other sources. And those sources are not going to be high impact guys too - or else they would be a superstar, and you aren't worrying about this in the first place.

Therein lies the path to success for any team that doesn't luck into a top 5 talent. Finding ways to get top level point production from parts of the roster, to allow for team impact guys to help you win from other parts of the roster, without one group completely tanking the other (Biyombo's an example of a positive impact guy who is almost bad enough production wise to cancel that out, if not for his rebounding keeping him afloat). And of course, having all of those pieces fit together, in roles they belong in, and playing in a system that emphasizes their strengths and hides their weaknesses.

All of this to say that although DeMar does not really display much in way of value when you look at his impact on team performance (and neither, really, does JV just yet), that does not disqualify him from being a valuable player. Nor from being worth bringing back, even on a max (or max-ish) deal. Max deals have never been just for superstars, not for as long as they've existed. Heck, they only exist to force superstars to make less money than they otherwise would.

So, yes, it would be nice if DeMar were a significantly positive impact guy. But if he were, he'd be a real superstar and we'd be one of the few lucky teams in the league to have a guy like that. As it is, we are one of the few teams in the league lucky enough to have a guy like Lowry (though obviously not as lucky as CLE, GSW, OKC or SAS, for example). And being able to surround him with high production guys while not having to take a big negative impact hit to do so is key to this team's success. And is really the only path to more success outside of lucking into one of those top guys somehow. Sure you look to add as many high-impact guys as possible with as much producing ability as possible (Millsap, for example, would be another Lowry-type addition who would really help the team) but you still need guys who can provide that primary offensive production.

And hey, if JV ends up one of those insanely good production-and-impact guys, or we get one some other way, then sure, DD's high production skill set might become redundant. But the good news is, that means there are 25 or so teams that need to build with the patchwork method we are currently stuck with, who would find a guy like DeRozan quite valuable. That certainly requires DeRozan to keep up his improved production from this season, but there's no real reason to assume he won't - it was largely an effect of his improved decision making and better plays run for him compared to the prior couple of seasons, and he's just entering his prime, not leaving it.

This post just thoroughly convinced me re-signing DeMar to a Max(-ish) deal is fine.

[Miekenstien]

I wouldn't have seen that manifesto if you didn't quote it. Great post, almost made me able to accept that max or close to it deal coming soon.

"demar, why why why? why is it good for demar to be here? why demar, demar, why, why why? hmmmmm.. why why why, do i kill him? do i sign him? why would we keep him??? hmmmm, why why why"