DE-SRESPECT
DeRozan feels mistreated in wake of Raptors trade to Spurs
DeMar DeRozan says he just wanted to be kept in the loop.
Speaking in a sit-down interview with ESPN’s Chris Haynes on Tuesday night, DeRozan discussed the lingering hard feelings stemming from his shocking trade from Toronto to San Antonio just over a week ago, the disappointment of not being able to compete in a LeBron James-less Eastern Conference, and what the Spurs will be getting in the four-time all-star shooting guard.
It was likely the most interesting ESPN sit-down with an ex-Raptors great since Vince Carter basically told John Thompson he coasted at times as a Raptor.
A hurt DeRozan felt he had done enough and given enough to the franchise to be fully looped in on what was happening.
“I felt like I wasn’t treated — with what I sacrificed for nine years, you know — with the respect that I felt I deserved. By just giving me the say-so of letting me know something’s going on, or that there’s a chance,” DeRozan told Haynes.
“That’s all I wanted. I’m not saying you don’t have to trade me, just let me know something’s going on. Because I sacrificed everything. Just let me know, you know what I mean? That’s all I ask.
“Everybody knows I’m the most low-maintenance person in the world. Just let me know so that I can prepare myself for whatever my next chapter is. I didn’t get that.”
DeRozan described the past week as “like a dream” and a “blur” and said he didn’t agree with team president Masai Ujiri’s description of their conversations.
“I asked: ‘Was I going to be traded? Was there anything going on, if it was a chance I’d be traded?’ And on multiple occasions it was: ‘No, it was nothing,’” DeRozan said.
This corner has argued that dealing DeRozan and firing coach Dwane Casey were justifiable moves (but that the optics in both cases were bad, Casey should not have done a news conference after the season if he was on the way out) and that Ujiri was correct in pointing to the past failings and asking whether they should just run everything back and try again, but DeRozan was particularly stung by the way Ujiri put it.
“I mean, when you say ‘them,’ that’s kind of frustrating. Like, who is ‘them?’ You put the blame on just me and Casey? Because obviously we are the only two who had to suffer from the loss that we had in the Cleveland series,” he said.
“But it’s only one team that we lost to in the post-season, and that team went to the finals every single year. With an opportunity approaching itself, my mindset and the rest of my teammates’ mindset was the only guy who was in the way of making that happen leaves. Now we’ve got a great opportunity to do something that we haven’t been able to do.
“At the end of the day, I gave everything I had to that team, and it showed. It showed in the progress we made as a team, in me as an individual. So when you put that out there saying: ‘Gave them chances’ and: ‘I have to do something,’ it’s B.S. to me.”
DeRozan is more than entitled to his opinion, but the fact is, it wasn’t just LeBron holding the team back. There was the sweep against Washington years ago, skin-of-their-teeth series wins over Indiana, Milwaukee and Washington, and even a close series against Miami.
Playoff DeRozan/Kyle Lowry have flashed a clear ceiling, with both stars tailing off significantly against any post-season foes.
DeRozan told a funny story of calling up ex-teammate Rudy Gay after talking to Lowry. The trio were once the Three Amigos as Raptors. Gay could only laugh when DeRozan said he would be joining him with the Spurs, thrilled that he was getting his close friend back. Gay told DeRozan he’d be fine. Lowry, who has twice been traded and was close to being dealt by the Raptors several years ago, sent him a long text message of support
Still, what has particularly hit DeRozan hard in all of this was the fact that he has been the anti-Raptor over the years, committing to the city of Toronto and the franchise like nobody else before him.
“Day 1 when I was drafted to the Toronto Raptors, they had this stigma on them: ‘Every guy leaves, nobody wants to be here, superstars, nobody wants to play in Canada,’” DeRozan told Haynes.
“From Day 1 my whole mindset and approach to the game, being in Toronto, was I wanted to change that whole narrative to that whole organization. That’s why I work my butt off like I did. That’s why I push, that why I repped so hard to get that stigma off. That was another example in my career where I could prove that by not having to meet with nobody else. Get this done within the first 30 minutes of free agency and keep moving.
“That was always my mindset and approach and you could tell by the connection I have with the fans. I never thought about elsewhere, I never mentioned elsewhere. I love that place. It’s literally my second home.”
DeRozan said he has the utmost respect and love for the franchise, the city, fans and ownership and only had an issue with “what I was told by this one individual and how things were handled with that.”