DEROZAN’S DISH LIST
Raptor sensation got this far with an assist from plays designed to feed him the ball. Now that they’re spreading it around more . . . he’s even better.
It can be a perilous business, asking NBA all-stars to reconsider the way they do their jobs.
The job of NBA all-star, after all, is a splendid one, what with the fame and the adoration and the astronomical pay. Arguing the merits of approaching things a new way to a man who has achieved most of his life’s dreams with a tried-and-true method — well, even if the all-star is a proven overachiever like DeMar DeRozan, it’s hardly a given there’ll be notable uptake.
So give DeRozan credit for the early returns on what the Raptors hope will be remembered as a season of change. Sixteen games into the campaign — and heading into Wednesday night’s date at Madison Square Garden as the reigning player of the week in the Eastern Conference — DeRozan has embodied the spirit of the franchise’s attempt at a stylistic transformation.
You know the broad outlines of what they’re trying to do here: take an isolation offence moored to the pet tendencies of DeRozan and fellow all-star Kyle Lowry and turn it into a more efficient unit that more heartily embraces ball movement and the three-point shot. And so far, there are reasons to believe there’s progress.
Last year, for instance, the Raptors ranked dead last in the league in assist percentage, with just 47 per cent of field goals attached to an assist. The pass-happy, championship-ring-wearing Warriors, in stark contrast, boasted a league-best 71-per-cent mark. This year the Raptors have vastly improved in this category, with some 57 per cent of their field goals coming with an assist, which suggests their dependence on isolation plays is waning, if not disappearing.
And DeRozan is among those to thank for the uptick, averaging as he is 4.6 assists per game — a career- high pace for the ninth-year swingman who once treated passing like it was a last-resort admission of personal failure. This season he’s been featured in some moments as the primary ball handler — a “quasi point guard,” as head coach Dwane Casey calls him.
“I think it’s just me being a critic of myself, understanding how I can be better and make everybody around me better,” DeRozan was saying this week. “That’s always been my approach, especially coming into this season. I know I can score. I know I can do this. But I want to make everybody around me even more comfortable.”
That Lowry was averaging 7.1 assists per game heading into Wednesday — up slightly from last year’s 7.0 while logging nearly six fewer minutes a night in playing time — suggests there’s high-end buy-in on Casey’s new offensive concepts.
“I tell guys all the time: I don’t care if I pass you the ball 20 times in a row and you miss 20 shots in a row, I’m gonna pass it a twenty-first, -second, -third time, every time down, you know?” DeRozan said. “And just to give that confidence, that goes a long way. I really don’t pay attention to the assists, they just come. That’s just the confidence I’ve got in my teammates.”
Confidence matters here, for sure. And maybe a teamwide lack of it contributed to the Raptors averaging a meagre 23 three-pointers a game, ninth-fewest in the league. This year, with the ball moving and the green light always flashing, they’re jacking up about 31 a game, fifth-most in the league. If they can figure out a way to make a few more — they’re among the bottom 10 teams in three-point accuracy — they could get dangerous. As it is, in the midst of a four-game win streak that has run their record to 11-5, they’ve made do impressively enough.
“We’re getting so many open looks,” Casey said. “We’ve got to get in a rhythm to knock them down.”
DeRozan is among those taking more three-pointers — not that anyone is going to confuse him with a Splash Brother. He’s averaging nearly three attempts a game, a career-high pace.
Still, it wouldn’t be a leap to sug- gest that the increased threat that DeRozan might take a three — coupled with the increased threat that he might actually do damage with a timely pass — is making it easier for him to do what he does best. Yes, the mid-range game remains his pet tendency. He has launched nearly a third of his field-goal attempts from between 10 and 16 feet, according to Basketball-Reference.com, on pace for career-high volume from this familiar pocket. And if that could be considered counter to the cause — because surely shooting more midrange jumpers wasn’t part of this season’s grand plan — DeRozan is providing a saving grace. He’s shooting 50 per cent from the field from between 10 and 16 feet — a careerhigh pace in yet another category. That number suggests he’s getting easier shots, or maybe taking better ones.
“He’s setting other people up. He’s taking what the game’s giving him,” Casey said. “And with a dynamic scorer like him, if you have that other facet of the game going, where you’re making plays, seeing other people, it makes you more effective.”
Which is not to say all this early change doesn’t come with caveats (i.e. that there’s still plenty of time left in this season for frustrated reversions to this team’s old ways, glimpses of which have already occasionally surfaced). Which is not to say all this early change has come easily.
“You know, it’s been a grind for us just figuring out, trying to put everything together, get our rhythm,” DeRozan said. “It hasn’t been the prettiest . . . trying to get things going, but we’re figuring it out. And that’s the beauty of it, and that’s the comfort of it, of us. Every day we come in here — practice, film, being able to play — we’re figuring it out and getting more and more comfortable with it. We’re nowhere close to satisfied or happy or feeling like we’re there yet. We’ve got a long way to go.”