Everything Derozan

[Puffer]

So all of this is over the fact that he takes 3 shots a game that you don't like?!

How many games did the Raptors lose this year by 5 points? How many games in the playoff did they lose by less than 5 points. In the playoffs, it was two. And every miss turns into a potential fast break opportunity.

And what do people mean by "shots a game that you don't like?" Contested shots against two or more opponents when someone is wide open. Shots in the last five seconds of the shot clock when you received the ball with 12 seconds left. Shots from 6" inside the 3 pt. line. This ignores all of the almost shots that didn't become shots because you were stripped, dribbled off your foot or simply lost the ball.

DeMar is a tremendous player. He could become an incredible player if he gave up three terrible shots a game for more heads up actions.

[stooley]

How many games did the Raptors lose this year by 5 points? How many games in the playoff did they lose by less than 5 points. In the playoffs, it was two. And every miss turns into a potential fast break opportunity.

And what do people mean by "shots a game that you don't like?" Contested shots against two or more opponents when someone is wide open. Shots in the last five seconds of the shot clock when you received the ball with 12 seconds left. Shots from 6" inside the 3 pt. line. This ignores all of the almost shots that didn't become shots because you were stripped, dribbled off your foot or simply lost the ball.

DeMar is a tremendous player. He could become an incredible player if he gave up three terrible shots a game for more heads up actions.

Right, but 3 shots aren't 6 points.

He's probably shooting 25% percent on those really tough ones, if not a smidgeon higher.

If we let the rest of the team handle them, they probably shoot 50% (?) tops.

So it's more like 1.5 points. So yeah it kinda blows, but he does a lot of other things that are good.

What happens on this page is we attack the same problem from different angles over and over again.

I think everyone can agree on what Demar is. What we disagree on is what that brings to the team as a whole/

[Joey]

Right, but 3 shots aren't 6 points.

He's probably shooting 25% percent on those really tough ones, if not a smidgeon higher.

If we let the rest of the team handle them, they probably shoot 50% (?) tops.

So it's more like 1.5 points. So yeah it kinda blows, but he does a lot of other things that are good.

What happens on this page is we attack the same problem from different angles over and over again.

I think everyone can agree on what Demar is. What we disagree on is what that brings to the team as a whole/

It's this, and the fact that I could at least 2-3 times per game that Demar is given the ball with 5 seconds left on the shot clock, and he's forced to create an awkward shot. I can't imagine it's Demar going out and saying "Screw my teammates, I can hit this from anywhere on the court". If it were, I'd guess Casey would have a slight issue with it.

[DanH]

It's this, and the fact that I could at least 2-3 times per game that Demar is given the ball with 5 seconds left on the shot clock, and he's forced to create an awkward shot. I can't imagine it's Demar going out and saying "Screw my teammates, I can hit this from anywhere on the court". If it were, I'd guess Casey would have a slight issue with it.

I have zero issue with DD taking those tough shots for the team when he needs to, and would never include those shots in my count of "bad shots." As for the 3 shots isn't so bad argument, the number 3 came from an earlier post. Like I said in my post, if he simply never took those iso-ball attempts or contested fadeaways, it would be more than 3 shots a game.

Oh, and 1.5 points a game means about 4 wins using the pythagorean win prediction. 4 wins cost just from stupid shots. Yeah, I'll take those 4 wins, thank you very much.

[Joey]

I have zero issue with DD taking those tough shots for the team when he needs to, and would never include those shots in my count of "bad shots." As for the 3 shots isn't so bad argument, the number 3 came from an earlier post. Like I said in my post, if he simply never took those iso-ball attempts or contested fadeaways, it would be more than 3 shots a game.

Oh, and 1.5 points a game means about 4 wins using the pythagorean win prediction. 4 wins cost just from stupid shots. Yeah, I'll take those 4 wins, thank you very much.

Touche. All good points. Never actually heard of this win projection system .. interesting. And I don't disagree that he takes some questionable shots, I guess it all just comes down to the fact that I think that what he does bring to the table far out-weights what he takes away. If taking and hitting one of those shots keeps the double team on him for 2 more possessions, you never know what positives are made from that carry forward affect.

[BigCamB]

It's certainly not " screw my teammates ima school these mofos with a 25 foot contested fader" He's not that kind of player/ person from what we've seen of him!
He does appear to need to dribble around a bit, kind of in a circle almost, in order to get rhythm and put up a shot and this often creates really contested shots from the perimeter. And sometimes if he's hot and made a few he will just keep shooting and shooting and eventually cool right down which puts the offense right out of sync ( hero ball) happened a bunch of times, although I don't recall any of them being in the playoffs.

He's made great strides as a playmaker for his teammates this season, but like anyone, there's plenty of room for improvement too.

[DanH]

Touche. All good points. Never actually heard of this win projection system .. interesting. And I don't disagree that he takes some questionable shots, I guess it all just comes down to the fact that I think that what he does bring to the table far out-weights what he takes away. If taking and hitting one of those shots keeps the double team on him for 2 more possessions, you never know what positives are made from that carry forward affect.

The "team offense" point is a fair one, but one that is hard to quantify. League patterns suggest that teams do indeed need a high usage player taking a lot of shots. But there's no evidence that Lowry being that guy wouldn't be more beneficial, or that DD couldn't be that guy, but with smarter shot selection. As far as outweighing what he takes away, with his lack of defense and rebounding, his offensive game needs to be really great to outweigh those deficiencies. And personally I don't find it up to snuff.

[Superjudge]

Holy shit you guys are hilarious.

You can do the same shit for almost every single developing player in the nba.


Wade doesn't take those shots right, or LBJ or Ray Allen, or manu, or a whole bunch of other guys....... WHO ARE ALL OVER 30 or close.


DD is a 24 year old developing super star. the kid has shown a mrked improvement every single year of his career. his positives vastly outweigh his "poor three shits a game", and by a margin that isn't even close.

If you're thinking thta somehow critiquing this make any of you look brilliant I got news for you..... it doesn't. Watching DD and a slew of other young players can be painful. They come not the NBA unprepared now because they dont remain in college long enough to learn. So, you have to wait it out.

Its not even that I dont think you guys can point this stuff out, go ahead.....but it was pointed out so long ago, its such a boring and obvious point of reference that its just ridiculous to continue on it. If there was no signs of improvement, sure, but there are, so honestly, y'all need to shut the hell up about it already.

[DanH]

You think there are signs of improvement? DD has been taking more mid range jumpers every year, and hitting no more of them than when he came into the league. His shot selection is getting worse, not better.

[imanshumpert]

Here's the rub; you're trying to have your cake and eat it to (DeRozan apologists, not just you specifically).

On one hand, you acknowledge that DeRozan isn't a superstar player and that ideally he should be a #1b/#2 scorer on a truly good team. Either that, or Toronto is compared to the NBA champion Pistons of the early 2000's, as a team that relies on a balanced lineup instead of 1 superstar carrying the load.

Yes, I acknowledge that DeRozan is probably not an ideal #1 option for a championship team... but he IS an ideal #1 option for this team as currently constructed because he is the best scorer on the team. People complain about him chucking up too many shots, when he doesn't shoot any more than the average #1 option on a playoff team (he actually shoots slightly less, and actually DECREASED his FGA in the playoffs).

And as for that "balanced" 2004 Pistons team that you're talking about. Rip Hamilton took 15 shots per 36 in the regular season the year they won the title, and 16 shots per 36 in the playoffs that same year. During their whole mini-dynasty (calling it that because they only won once) he averaged around 16 shots per 36, which is exactly the same amount DeMar took this year (DeMar actually only took 14.9 in the playoffs), so I'm not really sure what you're talking about.

On the other hand, you argue that it's acceptable for DeRozan to try and play like a superstar, effectively forcing his game and taking too many poor/contested shots (which is the exact point so many 'haters' have been making all season).

No, read again properly. I said it's acceptable for DeRozan to take a lot of shots because we need someone to carry a significant volume of the offensive load. Him taking poor/contested shots at times is a by-product of him not being an ideal #1 option and our team needing to be bailed out at times late in plays. I'd rather have him taking those shots than Jonas, Lowry, Ross or anyone else on the team.

The bottom line is that DeRozan doesn't have to do anything. If he were to play within himself, he should be taking a few less shots a game, effectively spreading out the team's offense. Doing so would force the defense to stay honest and defend multiple players more closely, rather than keying on DeRozan, which is what they're doing because he's forcing himself into the superstar role. Spreading the offense around would generate more open looks overall, get more players involved and into the flow of the offensive game, and would even actually benefit DeRozan by alleviating some of the double-teams and pressure being put on him.

Actually he does. I'm not against ball movement at all, but once again you live in a fantasy world. I just showed you that every playoff team has one, or sometimes even two player(s) that shoot just as much as DeRozan does. One area DeRozan does need to get better at is attacking double teams with the pass (he's good at avoiding turnovers, but not really creating offence out of a double). You act like he's a ball hog and a black hole when he really isn't. People who want him to take 13 or 14 shots per game don't want to win games. Maybe if we had a better scorer than him on this team he could do that, but we don't.

I will fully admit that a good chunk of the blame falls on DC, for playing DeRozan in that role (or for not holding him accountable for going against more balanced, team-oriented play calling). DeRozan isn't a superstar and shouldn't be playing a superstar style game, yet he is, inefficiently.

No, the blame is on the roster because we don't have a better/more efficient player to play that superstar role. Unfortunately there aren't exactly a lot of those type of players in the NBA.

As many of the most vocal 'haters' themselves have admitted, both DeRozan and the team were playing their best when he wasn't forcing the superstar style of play. When his shot totals were down (especially long 2's), his peripheral numbers were up (assists and rebounds) and the ball was moving more, his harshest critics gave him credit. Unfortunately, in the playoffs, he reverted to his old-self and played a Rudy Gay-lite style game.

How did DeRozan play like Rudy Gay in the playoffs? He was scoring at well above average efficiency (55% TS), and actually reduced his number of field goal attempts from the regular season while increasing his free throw attempts. His rebounds and assists were about at the same level as they were during the regular season.

You do realize that Lowry (14.5) took the about the same number of shots (14.9) per 36 as DeRozan did in the playoffs right?

[imanshumpert]

Ya I think Igoudala is one of those underrated superstars. He is one of the few players that can do everything well with some things amazingly well. The fact that he has little to no holes in his game is probably why I value him so highly. I would trade a lot to get him.

Iguodala is not a superstar by any stretch of the imagination.

Holes in his game are that he doesn't score the ball (maybe that's because he's not asked to score a lot, but either way he doesn't) and is a terrible free throw shooter. He's also very turnover prone.

I want the Raptors to follow the Spurs methodology of less shots more spread out. You can't just conveniently ignore stuff to suit your needs (like you did when saying DD was great if you don't include game 1 in the playoffs, yet grill me on a 30 game sample size). Just because everyone else in the league is chucking it up...why do we? Why can't we be a team full of 12 shot guys? I bet that team would be extremely hard to stop, even harder than having just 1 guy who has to "take a lot of shots"

See this is my problem, you actually don't even know what you're talking about. You realize that Duncan and Parker take 15.1 and 16.5 shots per 36 respectively right? DeRozan takes 16.8 and he doesn't have a Duncan and Ginobili to take scoring pressure off him. You can't just look at the raw shots per game stat in this case because DeRozan plays almost 10 more minutes per game than the Spurs stars.

How many games this past season would someone like Amir or Val be 5/5 and DD be shooting 20% and he still wouldn't pass it to them?? How do you think this team ever is going to improve unless he starts spearing the rock more for the amount he has possession?

Idk, that's up to your own personal perception, unless you have the stats on it I don't really care whether you feel like he does that all the time or not.

DD is below that ideal range you described, so he needs to cut his attempts and become more efficient or this team will not improve. Also he is the second worse in terms of guards, but the other guard at least brings defense and 9 assists and more rebounds a game. Basically he was the second worst scorer on that list of guards while bringing virtually nothing else to the table like the rest of the listed guys. DD is not good enough to be listed with those guards yet.

Yeah and guess what that's why we lost in the freaking first round. Until this team has a player that is clearly better than DeRozan on it we're not going anywhere. He needs to be the 2nd best player on the team. The problem is it's very difficult to acquire such a player, and trading DeRozan for Luol Deng, Iguodala, Waiters, or any other patchwork fix type player out there isn't going to solve the problem.

I think people confuse my support for DeRozan as me being content with him as the #1 option, I'm not. I'm waiting for Ujiri get his hands on a better scorer by any means necessary, because DeRozan's game truly does suit a #2 role better.

The other option would be to try and build a Pistons model where we have 3 players that are great scorers (Billups, Sheed, Rip), this is actually possible if Jonas improves his offensive significantly, so we'll see. The main issue is we don't have Ben Wallace and they were a historically great defense.

[imanshumpert]

In a 6 point game, yes, 3 possession matter a lot.

And I think 3 is a little on the low side but I'm biased and a known hater.

It is all about playing within the team. He does that and he won't be faced with so many difficult shots because his teammates will have to be respected. He helps himself and the team by not forcing ISO possession after possession - which at times he does.

As always there is a time and a place for everything and DeRozan certainly is better at creating scoring opportunities than everyone on the team not named Kyle Lowry.

This is complete nonsense.

Not the part about playing within the team, that's great and he's made great strides in that area this season.

The BS part is about his teammates needing to be respected. I'm sorry but let's not overrate our players here. No team is going to game plan for Valanciunas, Ross, Amir or any body else on the team that isn't DeMar or Lowry. They're all one dimensional offensive players, you don't come into a game focussing on how you're going to shut them down.

There are a multitude of reasons why teams throw doubles at DeRozan and base their defensive schemes on him:

- When he drives, it is a dunk, layup or 2 free throws. He is VERY difficult to stop going to the rim, doubling him helps shut this down because he doesn't have elite handles to break down doubles.

- He can score in a variety of ways: catching off screens, second best P&R ball handler in the league (PPP), mid-range game, pull-up jumpers (his worst shot), high-post, low-post, etc.

- When you double DeRozan you force somebody else on the team to beat you, and unless that player is Lowry that is EXACTLY what you want if you're playing Toronto. The idea isn't to get DeMar to turn over the ball (because he doesn't do that), it's to get him to make somebody else make a play.

EDIT: Now you might ask why teams don't do this against the Spurs, Heat, etc. Well you can't throw a double at any of their guys because they have 3 KILLERS on their teams who you can't leave.

[mcHAPPY]

This is complete nonsense.

Not the part about playing within the team, that's great and he's made great strides in that area this season.

The BS part is about his teammates needing to be respected. I'm sorry but let's not overrate our players here. No team is going to game plan for Valanciunas, Ross, Amir or any body else on the team that isn't DeMar or Lowry. They're all one dimensional offensive players, you don't come into a game focussing on how you're going to shut them down.

There are a multitude of reasons why teams throw doubles at DeRozan and base their defensive schemes on him:

- When he drives, it is a dunk, layup or 2 free throws. He is VERY difficult to stop going to the rim, doubling him helps shut this down because he doesn't have elite handles to break down doubles.

- He can score in a variety of ways: catching off screens, second best P&R ball handler in the league (PPP), mid-range game, pull-up jumpers (his worst shot), high-post, low-post, etc.

- When you double DeRozan you force somebody else on the team to beat you, and unless that player is Lowry that is EXACTLY what you want if you're playing Toronto. The idea isn't to get DeMar to turn over the ball (because he doesn't do that), it's to get him to make somebody else make a play.

EDIT: Now you might ask why teams don't do this against the Spurs, Heat, etc. Well you can't throw a double at any of their guys because they have 3 KILLERS on their teams who you can't leave.

I thought you were going to put me on ignore next chance you got?

The only bullshit I'm reading is your rant. You're making the game of basketball much more difficult than it needs to be. Player and ball movement - that is my point. All the great teams have it. DD's ISO fetish and long 2s off set plays is causes the ball and players to stop moving.


Anyways, did you watch the playoffs?

When he played within the team the Raptors played fantastic - there are a bunch of posts in the game threads of me going on and on about this to his credit.

As a result of that there were opportunities for him to step up and score at much needed opportunities.

[imanshumpert]

I thought you were going to put me on ignore next chance you got?

The only bullshit I'm reading is your rant. You're making the game of basketball much more difficult than it needs to be. Player and ball movement - that is my point. All the great teams have it. DD's ISO fetish and long 2s off set plays is causes the ball and players to stop moving.


Anyways, did you watch the playoffs?

When he played within the team the Raptors played fantastic - there are a bunch of posts in the game threads of me going on and on about this to his credit.

As a result of that there were opportunities for him to step up and score at much needed opportunities.

As usual a personal attack from you instead of a rebuttal, go sleep man

[mcHAPPY]

As usual a personal attack from you instead of a rebuttal, go sleep man

Riiiight. You call a post complete nonsense and lay out the bullshit in it. You seem to be extremely critical of most of my posts and ideas. You really should follow up on your promise of placing me on ignore.



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