OKC Exposed Demar Derozan game + thoughts on Raps

[kalel123]

DeMar DeRozan is the least of our problems.

With so many holes elsewhere, there's no point in singling out DeMar DeRozan for his limitations cause trading him won't solve our biggest problems. He can be a solid contributor in a winning situation or be a solid trading chip when we are actually ready to take the next step.

[JunkYardSubs]

DeMar DeRozan is the least of our problems.

He can be a solid contributor in a winning situation

I dont think he can

[Big Shot]

"A solid contributor in a winning situation" means nothing and can be applied to almost any player in the league. If a player plays with 4 great/good players, his weaknesses can be easily camouflaged.

[kalel123]

DeMar DeRozan is the least of our problems.

He can be a solid contributor in a winning situation

I dont think he can

See the second part of my statement. He's easily tradeable if he can't be. The fact is he's improved almost every single year of his young career with the exception of lockout-shortened season after coaching change. There's no reason to think he can't continue to evolve. Even if he stagnates, he's not paid that much by today's standards and he's made strides this year to be worth his contract and not regress like some people tend to do after big extension. That makes me confident that he'll continue to take steps to try and improve so he'll at least be tradeable for a good piece and not become a Bargnani.

Like I said, he's the least of our problems and you are looking in the wrong direction if you are pointing your fingers at him right now and talking like trading him will somehow magically solve our biggest of the problems.

[Regression2u]

DeMar DeRozan is the least of our problems.

His salary will become an issue.

The only area where he excels at is midrange scoring. Does that warrant a $40M investment, sacrificing cap space with a $4M a year premium? He's not a good defender, he can't playmake for others, and he doesn't rebound or get steals. Even his specialty, scoring, is a function of playing 37 minutes a game and being fairly ball dominant. He has never had a game winning shot in his career and I don't recall him taking over a 4th quarter. He rarely strings together a complete game.

[Danchan]

See the second part of my statement. He's easily tradeable if he can't be. The fact is he's improved almost every single year of his young career with the exception of lockout-shortened season after coaching change.

Prove? or are you seeing the maturity process of every single player that has been force fed minutes despite how well he performed.
Even if he "improved" every year, it wasn't at any meaningful increments. If anything he just allocated his energy to the right place where it shows up more on the stats sheet.

[kalel123]

DeMar DeRozan is the least of our problems.

His salary will become an issue.

The only area where he excels at is midrange scoring. Does that warrant a $40M investment, sacrificing cap space with a $4M a year premium? He's not a good defender, he can't playmake for others, and he doesn't rebound or get steals. Even his specialty, scoring, is a function of playing 37 minutes a game and being fairly ball dominant. He has never had a game winning shot in his career and I don't recall him taking over a 4th quarter. He rarely strings together a complete game.

Take your blinders off and look around the league. He's not being paid an outrageous amount and he's inching closer and closer to being worth the price. His rebounding has gone up to a respectable level considering his position/height. He's now rebounding very close to the rate that he should be. His effectiveness has gone up if you actually look at games. And he ain't ball dominant. It's not like we continuously run plays for him, we probably don't run enough plays. He avg's less than 2 turnovers a game, does that sound like a ball dominant guard to you? He's got his flaws sure but you aren't going to get a perfect player at $10M a year in this day and age.

[Terrible1]

It's the same excuse as the OKC being an elite team thing, which I mentioned earlier in this thread. Thabo is just partially responsible for DeMar's struggle.

Agreed, but its clear DeMar isn't to the point where he can be relied on to torch an established shut-down defender.

I hope you all are aware that Thabo is easily one of the best defenders in the league and has even locked down LEBRON at times.

thabo is a good defender but almost every team has one of em so that cant possibly be a excuse

That's not true. Not saying Thabo is one of a kind but he is a top defender and I would say very few teams have players as good as him (on defense ofcourse).

[Dalek]

I am not going to wade into whether Demar is a star, semi-star, or any other prescribed label. I will say that when I see him have ineffective games it is when guys play physical with him. I noticed a ton of arm grabbing and some hard hits put on him last game, and it has been a trend with most of his poor games. Play him physically, and he will back down. I think everyone has seen his frustration level at the lack of respect he receives. I think if you get in his head a bit with some rough stuff, he doesn't yet know how to respond.

The other issue from yesterday was that the Raps were just rushed. OKC's defense makes you play rushed, but that said, the team could pump fake a bit more and slow down the pace. OKC did not get fouled enough and had too many fastbreak points.

[Danchan]

incidentally teams starts playing physical and rough when it comes to crunch time... which is why DD usually under performs in the clutch. now the question is, would he EVER get better and gain composure? He's been our closing line up for as long as I remember... a sg that can't create/score/defend in the 4th might as well be off the court and make way for someone with real swagger.

[junot111]

I hope you all are aware that Thabo is easily one of the best defenders in the league and has even locked down LEBRON at times.

This is VERY true but star players are supposed to be able to score against good defense, that's what you have scorers for. Otherwise forget your hopes of a championship. And that's the point of this thread, I think. DeMar just isn't good enough as a key piece for us if we ever want to go far. Obviously this would be moot if this was just an isolated incident, but I think we all know that this was not just a bad performance but a result of his inability to step up against a good team

[Troubadour]

I think we knew DeMar isn't a superstar. With our weaknesses at other positions, as well as our injuries - four bigs out, basically forcing Amir and Ed to play even when it might have been nice to put in somebody with more offence at PF, you would expect OKC to focus on shutting down DeMar's driving lanes and take away the space on screens he needs to get an open look.

It's not rocket science - when your starting lineup is Jose, DeMar, Pietrus, Amir and Ed, who the f@q is going to score, and who does the opponent key on?

Give it up already Dagger. Blaming others for a player's struggle. You really want to do a Bargnani on DeRozan? Blame Bargnani's struggles on his teammates.

Not a superstar? How about not even a star? And no, OKC did not focus on DeMar. They defended DeMar 1 on 1, and any decent defender can shut him down more often than not. DeMar should be thankful that Sefolosha is a limited offensive player and did not go bonkers on him, so he got a day off on the defensive end.

OKC plays strong enough team defense to not need to double someone like Demar. It's not making an excuse. It's simple logic. If there is one high scorer in the game, the gameplan is to stop him from scoring. Simple as that. You might have noticed the Alan Anderson gravy train only ran for so long. A team like the Thunder counts on being able to stop the premier scorer on each team, forcing other players on the team to step up.

[Death Knight]

I think we knew DeMar isn't a superstar. With our weaknesses at other positions, as well as our injuries - four bigs out, basically forcing Amir and Ed to play even when it might have been nice to put in somebody with more offence at PF, you would expect OKC to focus on shutting down DeMar's driving lanes and take away the space on screens he needs to get an open look.

It's not rocket science - when your starting lineup is Jose, DeMar, Pietrus, Amir and Ed, who the f@q is going to score, and who does the opponent key on?

Give it up already Dagger. Blaming others for a player's struggle. You really want to do a Bargnani on DeRozan? Blame Bargnani's struggles on his teammates.

Not a superstar? How about not even a star? And no, OKC did not focus on DeMar. They defended DeMar 1 on 1, and any decent defender can shut him down more often than not. DeMar should be thankful that Sefolosha is a limited offensive player and did not go bonkers on him, so he got a day off on the defensive end.

OKC plays strong enough team defense to not need to double someone like Demar. It's not making an excuse. It's simple logic. If there is one high scorer in the game, the gameplan is to stop him from scoring. Simple as that. You might have noticed the Alan Anderson gravy train only ran for so long. A team like the Thunder counts on being able to stop the premier scorer on each team, forcing other players on the team to step up.

You said it, it's simple logic, so there's no need to bring it up. If you bring it up, it turns into an excuse. Know what I mean?

And like I've said, OKC's defense is just partial to DeMar's struggles. His offensive game hasn't expanded enough to where he can score in multiple ways. He can only score given a few scenarios. His best offense still comes from the help of his teammates to get him open coming off screens and getting a shot up or driving lane to the basket, which he's not very good at finishing and relies too much on getting calls.

[DG88]

I laugh at the people here who say that DeRozan was not the focus of OKC's defense. Hello guess who's our leading scorer on our team because it's not Lowry or Bargnani but DeRozan. It's something called scouting your opposition and using it to slow down you opponent. Yes DD has his limitation but he's played well enough for defenses to go after him. At this point in time is the adjustment period for DeMar and we know he's been watching tape on how defenses are denying him of his sweet spots. It's another learning experience for him and you know damn well he's gonna work his butt off to make counters for when defenses come at him in a certain way.

[Troubadour]

Give it up already Dagger. Blaming others for a player's struggle. You really want to do a Bargnani on DeRozan? Blame Bargnani's struggles on his teammates.

Not a superstar? How about not even a star? And no, OKC did not focus on DeMar. They defended DeMar 1 on 1, and any decent defender can shut him down more often than not. DeMar should be thankful that Sefolosha is a limited offensive player and did not go bonkers on him, so he got a day off on the defensive end.

OKC plays strong enough team defense to not need to double someone like Demar. It's not making an excuse. It's simple logic. If there is one high scorer in the game, the gameplan is to stop him from scoring. Simple as that. You might have noticed the Alan Anderson gravy train only ran for so long. A team like the Thunder counts on being able to stop the premier scorer on each team, forcing other players on the team to step up.

You said it, it's simple logic, so there's no need to bring it up. If you bring it up, it turns into an excuse. Know what I mean?

And like I've said, OKC's defense is just partial to DeMar's struggles. His offensive game hasn't expanded enough to where he can score in multiple ways. He can only score given a few scenarios. His best offense still comes from the help of his teammates to get him open coming off screens and getting a shot up or driving lane to the basket, which he's not very good at finishing and relies too much on getting calls.

So, if you make someone aware of logic they choose to ignore, it automatically becomes an excuse. That's an interesting piece of logic right there.

Relies too much on getting calls? He never gets calls. Yet, somehow this is his highest scoring year in the league. Funny how that works.

You seem hellbent on turning every possible reason for his struggles against the Thunder into an excuse from the BC Administration. The reality, however, is that he had a bad game against the best team in the league. It happens. If you expect a player who we knew would be a project to have reached his peak after four years, you're sadly mistaken.