Everything Derozan

[Chr1s1anL]

S/O to Debo for passing Carter in FGM. 80 more I to catch Bosh I think.

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[Joey]

And there lies the problem Joey.... terms like "more likely", "made it seem" and "implying" are all also subjective opinions in eyes of the beholders. And when they are taken to the next level of accusation of the poster intent for their own opinions, with Pavlovian piling on by the usual suspects - in this case, they are flat out wrong.

But what else do people have to go off but your post, and their interpretation of it? Intent is fine, but if multiple people deduced the same message, which is apparently opposite of what you meant it to be, then don't you think the "problem" is that your message could have been better delivered?

[Lupe]

Saw an interesting stat yesterday that the Spurs defense is ranked #1 when Kawhi Leonard is OFF the court and 27th when he's on it. And no it doesn't boil down to playing with Pau and Parker and other average to below average defenders in the starting lineup because even in splits with just those players his numbers look bad.

His usage percentage jumped up to over 30% this year and now he's in the DeMar range of offensive workload. Seems like that does have a significant effect on a player's ability to defend at a high level even for someone who started out as a DPOY candidate. Similar thing happened to Jimmy Butler last season (although he didn't even get near 30%).

[DanH]

Saw an interesting stat yesterday that the Spurs defense is ranked #1 when Kawhi Leonard is OFF the court and 27th when he's on it. And no it doesn't boil down to playing with Pau and Parker and other average to below average defenders in the starting lineup because even in splits with just those players his numbers look bad.

His usage percentage jumped up to over 30% this year and now he's in the DeMar range of offensive workload. Seems like that does have a significant effect on a player's ability to defend at a high level even for someone who started out as a DPOY candidate. Similar thing happened to Jimmy Butler last season (although he didn't even get near 30%).

All the more reason why I still think the team would be better off letting DD take a lesser load offensively, or at least to have him play more of a playmaker's role with scoring being a less dominant part of his game. Heck, look at the past 6 games - his usage is back down below 30% (from upwards of 35% for his early scoring streak) and the team's defence has been great (99.1 DRTG with him on the court). Also coincides with his bench unit finally coming out of their terrible defensive slump to start the year - over the past 6 games the DD-plus-bench unit has posted a 84 DRTG, way down from the 120 they were posting two weeks ago - with DD's usage in his bench role down to 36% (like it was last year) from the absolutely insane 47% usage he was carrying with that unit before this 6 game stretch.

[golden]

All the more reason why I still think the team would be better off letting DD take a lesser load offensively, or at least to have him play more of a playmaker's role with scoring being a less dominant part of his game. Heck, look at the past 6 games - his usage is back down below 30% (from upwards of 35% for his early scoring streak) and the team's defence has been great (99.1 DRTG with him on the court). Also coincides with his bench unit finally coming out of their terrible defensive slump to start the year - over the past 6 games the DD-plus-bench unit has posted a 84 DRTG, way down from the 120 they were posting two weeks ago - with DD's usage in his bench role down to 36% (like it was last year) from the absolutely insane 47% usage he was carrying with that unit before this 6 game stretch.

DeMar learning how to become a playmaker vs. individual scorer is one of the keys to raising the ceiling of this current group. The Raps can beat the Cavs in the playoffs, IMO, but only with a total team effort using our strength - which is overflowing depth of talent. Same goes for Lowry, i.e., trusting his teammates and developing that passing chemistry with shooters, cutters & rollers during the regular season - not waiting for the playoffs when you're double & triple teamed.

During Toronto's six-game winning streak, 26 players are averaging more PPG than DeMar DeRozan, who was No. 2 in the NBA before this streak.

— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) December 5, 2016

[Lupe]

All the more reason why I still think the team would be better off letting DD take a lesser load offensively, or at least to have him play more of a playmaker's role with scoring being a less dominant part of his game. Heck, look at the past 6 games - his usage is back down below 30% (from upwards of 35% for his early scoring streak) and the team's defence has been great (99.1 DRTG with him on the court). Also coincides with his bench unit finally coming out of their terrible defensive slump to start the year - over the past 6 games the DD-plus-bench unit has posted a 84 DRTG, way down from the 120 they were posting two weeks ago - with DD's usage in his bench role down to 36% (like it was last year) from the absolutely insane 47% usage he was carrying with that unit before this 6 game stretch.

I think his usage had more to do with teammates struggling to shoot effectively than being by design, that and Lowry not being particularly useful early on.

[Lupe]

Note: DeRozan is averaging career highs in points, assists (and AST%), rebounds (and REB%), steals, field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, win shares per 48, usage and PER this season.

I'm starting to wonder if DeRozan is actually the opposite of a contract year player. This is the second time where at the start of a new contract (as opposed to the end of an old one) he's made a significant statistical leap. Last time was 2013-14 when he started the BC extension and almost doubled his win shares from the previous season and had pretty significant jumps in scoring and assists.

EDIT: A little psychology here (not that I'm an expert at all, this is my 100 level knowledge) but it seems like DeMar responds pretty well to positive reinforcement. Might be that being rewarded with the big contract gives him more confidence and gets him playing at a higher level. Might also explain why negative punishment (taking away things like minutes or reducing his role when he doesn't play well) hasn't really been used on him.

I have no clue if teams or the Raptors actually look at or care about stuff like that just an observation.

[3inthekeon]

I think his usage had more to do with teammates struggling to shoot effectively than being by design, that and Lowry not being particularly useful early on.

I would guess it had as much to do with the Hot Hand Theory.

[Lupe]

I would guess it had as much to do with the Hot Hand Theory.

That too. And it's not like we were playing badly in those games. We were 8-4 during his really high usage period in the first 12 games and 3 of those losses were to Golden State and Cleveland. It made sense for him to keep shooting how ridiculously potent he was scoring the ball especially compared to some teammates who struggled out of the gate.

[DanH]

That too. And it's not like we were playing badly in those games. We were 8-4 during his really high usage period in the first 12 games and 3 of those losses were to Golden State and Cleveland. It made sense for him to keep shooting how ridiculously potent he was scoring the ball especially compared to some teammates who struggled out of the gate.

Overall we were playing fine - the offence was great but the defence was shoddy. And since he scaled back, the offence has been even better and the defence has definitely been far better.

I disagree with the causality as well - is it a coincidence all our role players had their worst shooting stretches when DD was carrying all that offence? I don't think DeRozan carrying a 45% usage in game 1 of the season was because the team was struggling to score - he'd have no way of knowing that yet. Heck, he carried a 45% usage in Q1 of game 1.

[Lupe]

Overall we were playing fine - the offence was great but the defence was shoddy. And since he scaled back, the offence has been even better and the defence has definitely been far better.

I disagree with the causality as well - is it a coincidence all our role players had their worst shooting stretches when DD was carrying all that offence? I don't think DeRozan carrying a 45% usage in game 1 of the season was because the team was struggling to score - he'd have no way of knowing that yet. Heck, he carried a 45% usage in Q1 of game 1.

So DeMar was hurting the rest of the team?

[DanH]

So DeMar was hurting the rest of the team?

I wouldn't necessarily say he was hurting them, but he definitely wasn't helping them like he has been lately with his improved emphasis on passing.

He was definitely hurting his own chances of giving an acceptable defensive effort (which he has improved a great deal since he scaled back his offensive workload).

[Lupe]

I wouldn't necessarily say he was hurting them, but he definitely wasn't helping them like he has been lately with his improved emphasis on passing.

He was definitely hurting his own chances of giving an acceptable defensive effort (which he has improved a great deal since he scaled back his offensive workload).

I disagree. And there isn't much evidence for what you're saying and his play was excellent in those first 12 games.

Our improvements of late offensively have been more due to shooting lights out than some vastly improved ball movement. Our assist percentage has only gone up 5 percentage points from the first 12 games and is still 25th in the NBA in the last 8 games. However our true shooting percentage has spiked from average-ish at 10th and 55.4% to 1st at 62.4%.

I think the improvement has more to do with shooters finding form which allows us to have a more balanced attack than flipping that the other way and saying that DeMar scoring like Jordan was holding us back somehow.

[JawsGT]

but the improved team defence can't be simply due to Demar's effort on that end as a result of a lower usage. He is just one guy, and at best is described as an average defender. He hasn't suddenly hit the elite defender status. Now maybe everyone is a little more interested in playing hard D consistently due to the better distribution of shots on the other end, that may make some sense to me. I kinda believe in that theory for basketball in general. And I do believe that Demar can put forth a stronger effort on D more consistently given that he may be expending less energy on offence. But it was clear early on that Demar was hot and the team was willing to ride him, and that others (including Lowry) were slow to get going. We can argue til we're blue in the face that they were slow to get going because Demar's usage was so high, but riding him was a team wide decision I'm sure...it's not just Demar making those decisions on the floor.

And as it turns out, establishing Demar early as the offensive threat he was, has created better opportunities to be a facilitator now that defences have focused on him more intently. He didn't see the same coverage consistently in the first 8-10 games that he has been seeing since. And he has adjusted accordingly and guys like Carroll and Patterson have been taking advantage of the opportunities.

[JawsGT]

and there may very well come a point in the season where defences are more likely to encourage Demar to take those 25 FGA in a game and stick to shooters more. We may see that tonight in fact. So the shot taking burden could very well shift back to Demar if that occurs and hopefully he'll be able to knock down shots at a high clip like he was earlier.