CAN’T TOUCH THIS
The formula for DeMar DeRozan’s season for the ages is simple, and the Carter-esque results speak for themselves.
The Toronto Raptors season that winds up Wednesday night has been one of great tumult thanks to injuries, the mid-season upheaval of two vital trades and the search for consistency because of all the change.
If there has been one constant, though, it has been the overall excellence of DeMar DeRozan, who is compiling a regular season that equals any put together by any Raptor in the history of the franchise.
Like the 27-year-old himself it has been understated and perhaps under-appreciated, a season of brilliance partially hidden by the oldman manner in which it was put together.
“He has never conformed to the prototypical way and he’s done it his way, which makes it more special,” teammate Kyle Lowry says. “I respect a lot the way he has approached it and done it.”
Through his own injury and those to teammates thought to be vital to his success, through new starters and new backups and new faces, and through defences designed solely to stop him, DeRozan has gone about his business and done it in recordsetting fashion.
With 35 points on Sunday — his 31st game of 30 or more — DeRozan became just the second player in franchise history to go over 2,000 points in a season, adding an accolade to a list that grows almost weekly. He’s posting career highs in player efficiency ranking, points per game, field goals made and attempted, free throws made and attempted, and rebounds. He has faced double- and triple-teams with regularity, yet according to the NBA he’s the only player in the league to compile a streak of 10 straight wins while scoring 30 or more points in each game.
“We try to put him in the right position so he can score with ease, but it’s a team effort,” said coach Dwane Casey. “Had to have someone screening for him, someone passing to him to get him those points.”
But once those screens are set and passes made, DeRozan’s offensive skills are off the chart and no matter how effective his teammates are at setting him up, he has to finish things.
“If you need a scouting report on how to defend him, don’t ask us,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said last week after DeRozan lit up the Heat for 38 points, after dropping 40 on them two weeks earlier.
It is an opinion echoed around the league. One league executive, after watching DeRozan have another out-of-this-world game, said: “When are we going to realize he’s unguardable?”
The season that DeRozan’s is most often compared to — by those who lived through both — was Vince Carter’s in 2000-01.
The statistics show scant difference in all the major categories. Both teams enjoyed tremendous success. Both players were the undisputed offensive leaders. But trying to pick one over the other is virtually impossible, because of the styles of the men who compiled them.
Carter was the astonishing athlete, and even novice fans would come away from just about every game he played remembering the “holy crap” moment Carter provided.
But if Carter was hip-hop, DeRozan is cool jazz.
There’s a subtlety to his game that’s almost overlooked: little shakes to create space, little ways to draw contact and shoot free throws, little ways to confuse defences just enough so he can get his shot from his sweet spot — mid-post on the left side of the court, as deadly a shot as exists in the NBA.
Carter was an explosion. DeRozan’s like the quiet rumble of a mild earthquake. One’s not better than the other. They’re just different — both really special, and DeRozan’s teammates hope fans appreciate it.
“I just hope that they know what he does and how hard he works,” Lowry said. “We all know in this locker room how hard he works and that’s important to us.”
DeRozan takes immense pride in the hard, unseen work that goes into his game: the summer days and inseason nights in the gym to perfect some other move, to work on the ones he already has, a constant search that has everything to do with effort, pure and simple.
And that’s the secret. His brilliance comes from hours of work no one sees but himself, always pushing and striving for more — for himself and to make his team better.
The result has been a magical season achieved without much hoopla.
“I’m always trying to get better,” DeRozan said. “I’m proud of what I’ve done, but there’s always a way to get better.”
Better than this season? That would be quite something.