Making assistant coaches scapegoats is the easy part of Masai Ujiri’s summer, and there are far more crucial decisions ahead for a GM that finds himself at a crossroads, where depending on how he fares, he could be a genius or the next Bryan Colangelo.
One of them is whether to give Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan another shot.
DeRozan and Lowry both showed that they can put up individual numbers as long as they remain ball-dominant, and it’s no surprise that were at their best when the other was out. Lowry has always grappled with being a system guy in an offense, and his premature departure from previous stops has come down to personality clashes or lack of fit. In Toronto, he’s been afforded carte blanche and made the most of it, but now that the shine has worn off, what lies beneath the surface is proving to be eerily familiar.
Lowry’s desire to “rescue” the team by taking over the offense is applauded when he hits a pull-up three down 1 with 2 minutes left, but when the same shot doesn’t fall, it reeks of selfishness and speaks to the lack of a reliable offensive system. Individual offense can carry you in the regular season, but in the post-season it needs to be of remarkable quality to even move the needle. We saw better players like Derrick Rose, Chris Paul, and Mike Conley fail to carry their teams on their own in the playoffs, and it’s foolhardy to think Kyle Lowry could use his brand of individual offensive to lead the Raptors to even moderate playoff success. You need to be operating at LeBron James and Stephen Curry-levels for one man to carry you in any significant manner in the post-season.
Injury-riddled in the second half of the season (mainly due to minutes mismanagement), injury is a concern for Lowry, in not so much that he’ll miss extended periods, but that he’ll be playing at 80% because of his pride and his Amir Johnson-mentality of pushing through. The Raptors will (hopefully) be trying a different system next season, and at 30, Lowry will have to learn anew, and this time he may be asked to play a role where he’s a piece of the puzzle rather than the central focus. The jury is out whether he’s able to abide by that constraint.
His backcourt partner, DeMar DeRozan, is a shooting guard who can’t shoot. He’s shooting 43% and 41% in the last two seasons, and 30% and 28% from three, respectively. He’s got a TS% of 51%, which is quite low and would be a lot worse if it weren’t for his FT attempts. The book is out on the six-year veteran, and though his brief stretches of point-forward play fill you with some hope that he can be a creative force, the sample size says he’s a black hole on offense.
His long-exposed weakness of being susceptible to lanky wings playing him tight has shown little sign of alleviation over the years. Whether it be Otto Porter Jr. or Tony Allen, DeRozan remains a fairly easy player to clamp down on when the opposition in keen on it, and if there’s anyone that would most benefit from a fresh approach to offense, it’s him. Lacking a shot and a quick drive, he’ll invariably look for a hard pull-up which defenses will invite him to take until he hits them at a steady clip, which he hasn’t – he shot 35% between 16-feet and the three-point line (i.e., the long two) which was also his most-taken shot accounting for 34% of all field goals attempted. That is a sign of a player being dared to prove he can shoot and simply being unable to.
Combine Lowry’s desire for the ball, and DeRozan’s need for it, and you’re left with a serious question to answer: can these two ever be part of a team-oriented offense that doesn’t use one-on-one play as a serious crutch. In the second half of 2013-14 (post-Gay trade), both DeRozan and Lowry played well. Sure, they failed in the post-season when the opposition was tuned in, but at least in the regular season they fared well. A big part of that was due to Patrick Patterson and Greivis Vasquez being very productive, and Casey playing a good combination of starter/bench lineups.
This season we saw hockey shifts, Patterson’s role reduced to a three-point shooter, Vasquez taking a step back, and Lou Williams being a giant black hole on offense. This translated to the infectious bench-driven ball-movement that was present the season before being overwritten by one-on-one play, which the coach didn’t recognize as a problem only because early results were positive.
Now that we’ve seen the good and bad side of Lowry and DeRozan, the question becomes how you make them efficient parts of a team. The first step in doing so, if Ujiri is even inclined to do so, is to ensure that DeRozan develops a three-point shot this summer. Without that, the Raptors are in big trouble and DeRozan will continue to be two tiers below where he needs to be for the Raptors. Only once DeRozan is at least a 35% three-point shooter, can you start designing offensive sets where he can legitimately serve as an off-the-ball threat. We talk about summertime assignments for younger players like Bruno Caboclo and Terrence Ross, but those pale in comparison to how important it is for DeRozan to take his shooting up a level. If he’s unable to produce this level of efficiency, then the Raptors may as well just ship him while his value is relatively high (at least compared to what it could be in a year).
If Ujiri chooses to give Lowry and DeRozan another shot, the former’s summertime assignments include 1) getting his head around how to guard his position at an average level, and 2) ingrain himself with the new offense the Raptors will be running, so that he can become a part of it rather than the standard-bearer. It’s noteworthy to mention that every other coach has failed at this.
This is all if you decide to keep the two. If you want to make more than cosmetic changes to the roster, Ujiri will have to package one of them for a bigger player. DeRozan is the one that has a greater chance of intriguing teams because of his work ethic, ability to get to the FT line, and age. Despite his shooting issues, there will be interested parties with enough floor spacing that’ll welcome DeRozan in the hopes that he can improve his shooting to average levels.
DeRozan has a player option of $10.1 million for 2015-16, which he will opt out of, essentially making this his contract year. That comes with an associated decline in market value since he becomes a rent-a-player who never fetch you much.
Kyle Lowry is a tougher proposition to move. He’s got $36 million owing on his deal, is hitting 30, has a reputation of being uncoachable, plays a position he can’t defend, and happens to be playing one of the most stacked positions in the league. He’s got a track record where his welcome wears down, and GMs have enough of a sample size where they’re likely to point to the player than the circumstance as the problem.
The reality is that any real Raptors shake-up will involve shipping one of these two, because replacing Terrence Ross, Amir Johnson or even Jonas Valanciunas, are peripheral changes that don’t change the core of this team, especially if the head coach remains the same.