DeRozan a mid-range magician
Raptors guard not about to take all his shots behind three-point arc
WASHINGTON — The NBA these days is one big numbers game. With the introduction of big data into the sport, a quest to find the best ways to score has led to a proliferation of shots at the rim and from behind the three-point arc — the two most efficient places to shoot from on a basketball court. Seldom do shots fly from the space between.
That has left a mid-range chasm unclaimed by both offence and defence. The goal of virtually every defence is to force opposing shots from this most inefficient area on the court. Many defences will almost willingly give up those shots, playing the percentages that misses will outweigh makes.
But while the rest of the league treats the mid-range as no man’s land, DeMar DeRozan is living in it. The Toronto Raptors guard has made two all-star teams and been a two-time member of Team USA — winning gold medals in the FIBA World Cup in 2014 and the Rio Olympics this past summer — by playing more like a shooting guard from 1986 than 2016, eschewing the leaguewide trend to bomb threes and instead mastering the shot every team is practically letting their opponents take.
“I’ve never been a person where you could sway me just because everybody is doing something, or something is changing,” DeRozan said. “I stick to everything I know. That’s just the type of person I’ve always been.”
Even after beginning to cool off over the weekend, DeRozan is still off to a fantastic start this season. He entered Wednesday’s action third in the NBA in scoring, averaging 30.9 points per game, while going just 6-for-26 from three-point range through his first 14 games. Reigning MVP Stephen Curry, by comparison, has shot 56-for-137.
Instead of getting threes, DeRozan is playing like a retro shooting guard, getting his points by conventional means: using his long, lanky 6-foot7 frame to rise up over smaller opponents to get clean looks from 15 to 18 feet, or by absorbing contact and getting to the free throw line, where he’s shooting better than 80 per cent on 9.6 attempts per game, sixth-best in the league.
“One thing about Demar is he gets it the old-fashioned way,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “His mid-range game is impeccable, and he’s probably playing right now with the most confidence he’s had in his entire career.”
That confidence is obvious in watching DeRozan play. Some of that confidence undoubtedly comes from his unsustainable hot start — he’s shooting an absurd 51 per cent on mid-range jumpers, well over the league average of 40 per cent. But DeRozan also looks like someone who turned 27 this summer and has moved into his prime from both a physical and mental standpoint.
To watch DeRozan during these early stages of the season is to see a player perfectly comfortable with who he is and what he’s doing. While DeRozan routinely takes shots that look exceedingly difficult, they are the shots he’s perfected.
“It’s the work you put in, and knowing what you’re capable of doing,” DeRozan said. “The experience I’ve gained playing in the league for so many years ...(you) realize there’s not much I haven’t seen when I go out there.”
Last summer was a big one. Despite months of rumours he would go back to his hometown of Los Angeles, DeRozan chose to stay with the Raptors on a five-year deal worth around US$140 million.
He followed that up by playing with Team USA in the Rio Olympics alongside Raptors teammate Kyle Lowry, fully establishing himself among the league’s elite. Those who return to the league from Team USA often come back as a different player, and DeRozan seems to have fallen into that same pattern.
It’s a transformation his coach noticed right away.
“He was a different person in training camp,” Casey said. “(He was) very methodical in what he did, and how he did it. You could see it starting then.”
It’s carried over to the regular season, as DeRozan is off to what easily is the best start of his career.
But while DeRozan likes the idea of being different, and the idea that he’s making the mid-range a relevant part of NBA offences again, that isn’t his reason for playing this way. Instead, it’s an acceptance of what his strengths are, and attempting to maximize them rather than be something he’s not.
“It cool to see it from the aspect of understanding you don’t have to just shoot threes and layups,” he said. “I can get to the (mid-range), I can get to the free throw line, into the paint, post-ups. I shoot a three here and there, and I know if I wanted to, I could go out and shoot six threes a night. But I’m gonna go out here and do everything else I do. (You should do) whatever you believe in, no matter what type of player you are. Kareem had the skyhook and nobody could stop it, so he kept shooting it.
“Whenever you got something like that, stick to it.”