NBA All-Star voting is here and the choice has never been more clear: DeMar DeRozan should be a starter.
As the Raptors social media accounts point out, DeRozan dropped a career-high the same day the NBA launched All-Star voting. It’s a fun coincidence, and the Raptors needed everything they got from DeMar against Philadelphia. It’s also a decent example of how DeMar’s game has changed and why he’s deserving of another All-Star nod.
Start with the three-point shooting. It was a nice night in Philly, shooting 6-9 from beyond the arc and looking really confident taking the shots. DeRozan’s up to 2.7 three point attempts per game, matching a career-high number from the 2013-14 season. He’s making 32.1% of his 3s this year compared to 30.5%, not a significant number improvement but an important one.
DeRozan’s three-point selection has not improved. In that 2013-14 season, DeRozan took 228 3s. Half of those threes came above the foul line extended, where he shot 22.8%. He connected on 37% of shots from the right corner and 50% from the left corner, but only took 81 and 24 shots from each area respectively.
This year, 61% of his three-point attempts come from above the foul line extended and he’s making 29.8%. You’d love to see the shot distribution go more towards the corners, sure, but that is difficult given DeRozan’s role in the offence. And 29.8% is a significant improvement when you consider he shot 20% from the same area last year.
Boiling the change down to one reason is not possible, but there are some clues. DeRozan is able to take significantly more open or wide-open threes, per NBA.com/stats. He hasn’t taken any threes where he’s been tightly defending, and 64 of his 80 attempts have come when he’s either “open” or “wide open”. That is a stark contrast to 2016-17, where DeRozan took only 89 “open” or “wide open” threes all season.
This leads into the next part of DeRozan’s improvement: playmaking and ball movement. It is accepted knowledge now that the offensive overhaul has worked, powering the team to 4th in ORtg. The ball movement is better and, more importantly, purposeful. DeRozan spearheads that change. His raw assist totals are up to five per game and he’s creating more assist opportunities than last year.
His playmaking and passing has resulted in more open looks for himself. This is harder to quantify and just something that comes with watching games. DeMar will get into the paint, kick it out, fill an empty spot and the ball finds its way back to him for an open three. These kinds of plays did not happen in prior seasons: DeMar would either shoot via drive or pull up mid-ranger, or make one pass and someone would else would take their turn to get a shot up.
Now, the ball hums around to capitalize on compromised defences. It’s been a revitalizing change for a team that could rightly be described as stagnant and maxed out given the recent results. Those are the kinds of things that the best players in the league can do – change a team by adapting their game. DeRozan did just that.
The remaining factor to all of this All-Star talk is his competition. Kyrie Irving is a lock for one of the guard spots given his start to the season, Boston’s winning streak and Irving’s massive popularity in a prominent market. So look around: Victor Oladipo has been a stud this season, Bradley Beal has been solid and … well. That’s about it for guards. Kyle Lowry has as strong a case as any other Eastern Conference guard, really.
Compare DeRozan, Oladipo and Beal. it’s really only DeMar and Victor who are competing and the Raptors are five games ahead of the Pacers in the standings. They are close, and the Oladipo redemption story is fun and could get some buzz. DeMar’s story is just as interesting, though: he is the leader on a better team who played a key role in reinventing a team by changing his play style even though he didn’t absolutely need to.
That’s an All-Star move. We’ll see DeMar on the All-Star team one way or another, but it is clear that he deserves a starter spot.
