Raptors fans should appreciate what has happened past few years | Woz All-Star picks | Courtside
Lowry had shown signs in Houston of being a potential two-way terror. Now that he’s added a deadly three-point shot and cut down on bad shot attempts and kind of formed like Voltron with DeMar DeRozan, it’s safe to say Lowry has now exceeded the expectations of Bryan Colangelo and Masai Ujiri. At times, particularly this season and early last year, he has been incredible. Not sure Lowry gets the appreciation he deserves for how well he has played.
That’s not to say DeRozan has been less than praise-worthy. He’s played the best basketball of his career and is a deserving all-star. He’s just not a top 10 NBA player like Lowry.
The trick now is sustaining this level of play (or at least approximating it) in the second half and finally leading the Raptors to at least one playoff series win.
How DeRozan turned injury into career-best season | Sportsnet.ca
“When I did the dunk contest early on and people would say ‘he’s a dunker,'” says DeRozan, who competed in the All-Star weekend’s dunk contest in 2010, his rookie year. “I hated that label. I felt like I was more than that, so I wanted to work on everything so that I was more than that.” His game has evolved in increments, year over year, but this season through 41 games DeRozan has taken some significant jumps on his way to averaging a career-best 22.4 points per game per 36 minutes. He’s second in the NBA in free throws attempted and made and he’s getting to the line more than he ever has before. His defensive rating is a career-best 106, moving him to within a fraction of the league average for the first time in his career. He’s passing more effectively than ever, averaging a career-best four assists per game with and a career-best assist percentage (the rate at which he assists on teammate’s field goals while on the floor) of 20.1 percent. It’s added up to a Player Efficiency Rate of 20.1 and a Win Shares/48 of .162, both significantly better than his previous highs, set during his first all-star season in 2013-14.
Quick Stat Hits: Gauging the Raptors’ offense | Raptors HQ
We’ve covered in some detail how much improved DeMar DeRozan has been in generating drives rather than settling for jumpers. With him being such a large portion of the offense, it would reason that the team has improved here. Here are the numbers, and league ranks, for the Raptors on drives this year. Note that NBA.com defines a drive as a possession where the ball starts outside of 20 feet and is dribbled inside of 10 feet of the basket (and does not include fast breaks).
Year | Number of Drives Per Game | PPG | AST% | TOV%
2014-15 | 27.4 (12th) | 18.1 (6th) | 8.8% (10th) | 7.0% (11th)
2015-16 | 36.1 (2nd) | 23.5 (1st) | 10.6% (11th) | 5.5% (4th)Wow, what a change. The team is making a concerted effort to get to the basket, with a 30% increase in drives per game and points scored off of drives per game. They also pass well out of drives and don’t turn the ball over, a rare combination. It seems DeRozan’s efforts are duplicated team wide. Good start. Moving on.
Raptors have nothing but love for Amir Johnson | Toronto Sun
“It’s just always weird. We only played once so I think the more we see him the weirder it’ll be to see him in another jersey. At the end of the day it’s going to be fun to compete against an old friend.” The Raptors beat Johnson and the division-rival Celtics in Boston on Oct. 30, with Johnson nearly posting a double-double in his unfamiliar No. 90 jersey. Johnson has been solid for the Celtics, starting 37 of 40 appearances, averaging 8.3 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in fewer minutes than he was accustomed to in Toronto as his body wore down. The change appears to have agreed with him, with his defence helping spark a Boston squad that trails only the mighty San Antonio Spurs in defensive efficiency this season. Johnson has also chipped in with double-figure scoring in seven of his past eight appearances after missing time due to plantar fasciitis and told the Boston Globe he is “finding my way.”
Toronto Raptors: Kyle Lowry Proving Hard Work Pays Off | Hoops Habit
But Lowry is still the straw that stirs the Raptors’ drink; the engine that powers the team; or whatever other idiom you’d prefer to use. At the end of the day, Lowry’s game — inherently infrastructured on his ability to score at the rim and from beyond the arc — is more efficient than DeRozan’s old-school, early-2000s influenced, mid-range dependent game. And if Toronto wants to realize their realistic aspirations of finally advancing out of the first round — an accomplishment the franchise has failed to achieve since 2001 — “Skinny” Kyle Lowry has to continue to be a thing; a sustainable and destructive thing.
Faithful fans will welcome back former Raptor Amir Johnson with open arms | Toronto Star
“I think he put his personality on front street from the beginning,” Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan said of Johnson.
“It’s rare you see that with a lot of NBA players . . . he did that with his personality. Everybody saw that, not just within the organization and the locker room. He shared that same charisma that he shared with everyone else to the fans. That’s rare. When you look at a guy like that and it’s genuine, it goes a long way.”
Many athletes recognize that with a big spotlight comes a bigger magnifying glass. Johnson put that concern aside and didn’t put up a wall between what his teammates and friends saw and what he showed the public.
If there was a zombie walk, Johnson was there, a makeup artists’ intricate work etched into his face. If it was fashion week, he had a front-row seat. Nuit Blanche? He loved it. Caribana? He had a float in the parade, he told Sports On Earth in 2014. His adventurous spirit and perhaps a generous handout of a Drake album on the streets of Toronto in 2013 earned him the fans’ love. That spirit went a long way with his teammates, too.
Raptors-Boston Celtics: Wednesday game preview | Toronto Star
Key matchup:Kyle Lowry vs. Isaiah Thomas. Two all-star calibre point guards meet with their teams playing at a high level. Their numbers — Lowry averages 21 points and 6.4 assists per game to Thomas’ 21.8 points and 6.6 assists — essentially cancel each other out, but Lowry has been the better defensive player this year as part of a defence-first Raptors team. Thomas won the duel in Boston on Oct. 30, out-scoring Lowry 25-14, but Lowry had nine assists to Thomas’ seven. The Raptors won the game, 113-103.
Who deserves to represent their conference at the NBA All-Star Game? | ESPN
Miami fans might wonder why DeRozan, a Wade-ish player, gets in over the actual Wade despite similar résumés. DeRozan has evolved into a new kind of offensive force by replacing a few midrange looks with drives to the basket. He is relentless. He averages 12 drives per game, the highest mark in the league. Only James Harden has attempted more free throws. Even when every avenue to the rim appears barricaded — when just about everyone, including DeRozan before this season, would settle for a jumper — DeRozan is charging ahead, banging dudes shoulder-to-chest, and rampaging wherever he wants.
Despite small sample sizes, Jonas Valanciunas is making gains on the court | Raptors HQ
First, the defense. For the final six minutes of the game, the Raptors held Brooklyn to a mere two points. After an admittedly pretty driving/spinning lay-up from Brook Lopez (who, it should be mentioned, went off for 29 points on 13-of-22 shooting), Valanciunas stopped Lopez on a similar drive, blocking the shot and drawing a jump ball call. He then denied the entry pass to Lopez, which led to a deflection to Terrence Ross and an insane breakaway dunk. He followed that up with a sequence of challenges at the rim that turned scoring opportunities into misses. This all happened against the offensively woeful Nets, but it is encouraging.
Toronto Raptors: Deserving or not, DeMar DeRozan will get Max Deal | Tip of The Tower
“Sometimes not even scoring, just being aggressive, getting other guys shots. And once you see that, you kind of play off each other.” The question is, how much longer will Raptors fans get to enjoy watching them work their magic together? While Lowry is around until at least the end of next season (with a player option for 2017-18), things aren’t quite as certain with DeRozan. The 26-year old has a player option worth $10.1 million for next season. However, as per a recent report by Brian Lewis of the New York Post, he is set to opt out at the end of this campaign and become a free agent. Lewis went on to claim the Nets, who got an up-close look at him on Monday, are interested in DeRozan. In fact, as per Zach Lowe of ESPN, there are “a bunch of teams” looking to sign the shooting guard, including the Los Angeles Lakers. You could argue the Lakers hold the biggest threat to the Raptors chances of re-signing the Compton, California native. As well as being his hometown team, Lowe writes that they are prepared to offer a max deal, starting at $25 million per season.
Casey ‘always concerned’ about DeRozan’s, Lowry’s minutes | Sportsnet.ca
“Always concerned about the minutes,” Casey said on Sportsnet 590 The FAN’s Dean Blundell and Co. Tuesday. “Especially when Kyle gets up around past that 35-, 36-minute mark is concerning. DeMar I think is durable and can do it, but again, we’ve got to start getting some more players more minutes as we go on.” Some suggestions the Raptors coach threw out included getting players like Cory Joseph and Terrence Ross increased burn, but Joseph is already playing a career-high average, and Ross is playing almost as much as he did when he was a starter. As everything stands right now, it doesn’t seem feasible to reduce DeRozan and Lowry’s workload. Particularly with DeMarre Carroll out and the Raptors in the thick of a heated Eastern Conference race, sitting just three games back of the first-place Cleveland Cavaliers and only 1.5 games up on the third- and fourth-place Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks.
Raptors To Live Or Die With DeMar DeRozan And Kyle Lowry | Pro Bball Report
Captain Obvious would tell you Toronto relies on Lowry and DeRozan for scoring. DeRozan is the top scoring shooting guard in the Eastern Conference at 22.8 points per game and leads the East with 8.2 free throw attempts per game. Lowry is the second highest scoring point guard in the East at 21 points per game making the Raptors backcourt the highest scoring duo (43.8 points) in the East by a significant margin. Sometimes overlooked, Lowry is sixth in his conference with 6.4 assists per game. DeRozan contributes a respectable 4.1 assists.
Raptors’ GM snares Vince Carter – how it was done | Raptors Rapture
Golden State approached our GM with a proposition: they were so determined to get their hands on Jamison, they would pay the Raptors “standstill” money, in effect, to ensure he didn’t slip away. A deal was struck by the teams’ GMs, and finalized by a phone call between GS owner Chris Cohan and Raptors head honcho (then as now) Larry Tanenbaum. In exchange for a payment of several hundred thousand dollars, the Raptors agreed to select Jamison, after which the Warriors would pick Carter, and the players would immediately be traded.
41 Takeaways at 2015-16 NBA Season’s Halfway Point | Bleacher Report
We have to redeem the Toronto Raptors shooting guard. Turns out that’s easy: DeMar DeRozan is in the midst of his best year ever, setting career highs in scoring, assist rate and free-throw rate, per Basketball-Reference.com. Even better: DeRozan had the best dunk of the first half.
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