Vince Carter was traded to Jason Kidd’s Nets during his 7th season as a Raptor. Chris Bosh left to sign with Wade and LeBron’s Miami Heat after year 7. It was reported that DeRozan would follow their leads. Instead, he signed a 5-year, $139 million contract with the Raptors this morning. He has already spent 7 seasons in Toronto. He’s the first All-Star the Raptors drafted that will stay with the team past 7 seasons. That alone is a milestone for the franchise.
DeRozan has been an iron man, missing just 37 of a possible 558 regular season games. He was tied for 8th in the league at 23.5 points per game with Russell Westbrook. He was 3rd in the league at over 8 free throw attempts per game, ahead of players such as Kevin Durant and LeBron James, and makes over 80% of those freebies. He has steadily improved over the course of his career, and established a reputation as a tireless gym rat constantly working on his game.
There are plenty of popular criticisms of DeRozan’s game. He doesn’t shoot 3’s well in a league leaning more and more towards the 3-ball. Defenders happily concede looks beyond the arc to him, and while he hit a career-high 34% on 1.8 attempts a game this past season, it remains his biggest offensive weakness and area for improvement. In the playoffs, that fell to 25% on 1.3 attempts a game. Defenses simply and justifiably don’t fear him from long distance. He takes a lot of inefficient midrange jumpshots, pulling up on defenders sagging into the paint to cut off the drives that are the foundation of his game. His defense can be spotty. He often struggles to close out on shooters under control and stay in front of guys off the dribble. Some have speculated that the Raptors would be better served letting him walk.
If healthy, DeRozan will spend next season taking over several team records. He’s 21 games behind Morris Peterson for most games played as a Raptor. He’s 1,159 minutes behind Chris Bosh for most minutes played, which should take him about 33 games to pass. A couple of games later, he should accumulate the 839 points he needs to pass Bosh as the franchise’s all-time leading scorer.
Can DeRozan be the best player on a championship team? Probably not. The good news for the Raptors is they’re not necessarily asking him to be. With fringe MVP candidate Kyle Lowry manning the point and 24-year-old big man Jonas Valanciunas about to enter his prime, he could be the Raptors’ 3rd-best player as soon as this coming season. All 3 will be playing in the Rio Olympics this summer, and are known to be hard-working, dedicated players. While the loss of Bismack Biyombo hurts, the Raptors are still one of the best teams in the East. Nobody thinks they can beat LeBron’s Cavaliers, and maybe they never will break through to the NBA Finals. But they’ve put themselves in a position to try, which is more than this franchise has done in its history, and more than many prognosticators thought they could do to begin with.
DeRozan is the longest-serving current Raptor. He has been there from Chris Bosh’s last disappointing season, through the painful rebuild that followed, all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. He said it best himself: “I am Toronto. Outside of where I’m from, I represent this thing harder than anybody. I’ve got so many goals that I want to accomplish still, and I just can’t wait to put that jersey back on and keep going”.
