DeMar DeRozan is underrated all of a sudden

[Mikistan]

The problem in the NBA is simple: guys who are OK at their role are not exactly more valuable than guys who excel in a lesser role if you want a championship team. An excellent 3 & D guy is more valuable than a guy who can create his own shot and shoulder high USG at mediocre efficiency.

No, he's not. That's really the point people keep glossing over. An excellent 3-and-D guy is more valuable ... to a team that already has stars. By themselves, they don't win anything. That's why Robert Covington has missed the playoffs four times in the five seasons where he was a starter (and yes, Minny wasn't on a playoff pace when he was healthy last year). DeMar DeRozan has made the playoffs the last six years in a row. High-impact, "worth Jimmy Butler" Josh Richardson missed the playoffs (yes again, even just counting his "healthy" games, while Jimmy has made it six of the eight seasons he's been a starter. LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't missed the playoffs since 2013 despite having pretty poor results in a lot of advanced stats.

Yes, I know "wins are a team stat". That's my point. You can't isolate a role-player and compare him to a star, even with the caveat of trying to control for the role difference. The stats need to give the innate boost to high-usage players to correctly reflect their impact on the game beyond just efficiency or on-off numbers. Sure, if you have a choice of a Kawhi or a Durant, you go with them and don't even think about DeRozan. But if you had to pick one guy to be the best player on your team, you pick DeMar over the elite role-players every time. That to me suggests that he's more valuable than they are.

Excellent post which highlights the disconnect here. Some people here get blinded by advanced stats and fail to take them into the context of role, team structure, coaching, system, etc. It reminds of technical stock traders who look for cups, humps and lumps in the charts but completely ignore company fundamentals.

The Raptor team that made the ECF and took the Lebron/Irving/Cavs to 6 games had guys like Bismack Biyombo, Demarre Carroll, and Patrick Patterson starting for them. Take Demar's scoring off that team and replace him with a 3&D roleplayer and that team doesnt get out of the 1st round.

If demar didn't get benched in game 5 of the first round against Indiana for Norman Powell, then raptors don't get out of the first round.

[metafisical]

If I have the time, I will bring up all the previous Raptor playoff threads where the majority of this board called him 'DeFrozen', and rightly so.

Dude is a great regular season scorer. He just isn't the same in the post season -- especially in the weak East in the past.

[dhsilv2]

Raptors fans always knew Lowry was better. Just because you ignored us doesn’t mean we did.

Hot take saying the raptors with an older Lowry Gasol and Ibakamight be worse

Pretty much all serious basketball fans knew that. Only people who think Skip Bayless makes good points thought otherwise.

I disagree, Lowry wasn't always better than DeMar. Lowry had his fair share of totally **** playoff performances as well, including this past year without DeMar and with Kawhi.

But I'm not really here to argue Lowry vs DeMar anymore

PS I'm a basketball fan and not much of a skip Bayless fan

Lowry has always been better and again not close. Even when Lowry has had awful shooting games, he still played defense and his defensive value is far more valuable than DD's offense.

[KrazyP]

No, he's not. That's really the point people keep glossing over. An excellent 3-and-D guy is more valuable ... to a team that already has stars. By themselves, they don't win anything. That's why Robert Covington has missed the playoffs four times in the five seasons where he was a starter (and yes, Minny wasn't on a playoff pace when he was healthy last year). DeMar DeRozan has made the playoffs the last six years in a row. High-impact, "worth Jimmy Butler" Josh Richardson missed the playoffs (yes again, even just counting his "healthy" games, while Jimmy has made it six of the eight seasons he's been a starter. LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't missed the playoffs since 2013 despite having pretty poor results in a lot of advanced stats.

Yes, I know "wins are a team stat". That's my point. You can't isolate a role-player and compare him to a star, even with the caveat of trying to control for the role difference. The stats need to give the innate boost to high-usage players to correctly reflect their impact on the game beyond just efficiency or on-off numbers. Sure, if you have a choice of a Kawhi or a Durant, you go with them and don't even think about DeRozan. But if you had to pick one guy to be the best player on your team, you pick DeMar over the elite role-players every time. That to me suggests that he's more valuable than they are.

Excellent post which highlights the disconnect here. Some people here get blinded by advanced stats and fail to take them into the context of role, team structure, coaching, system, etc. It reminds of technical stock traders who look for cups, humps and lumps in the charts but completely ignore company fundamentals.

The Raptor team that made the ECF and took the Lebron/Irving/Cavs to 6 games had guys like Bismack Biyombo, Demarre Carroll, and Patrick Patterson starting for them. Take Demar's scoring off that team and replace him with a 3&D roleplayer and that team doesnt get out of the 1st round.

If demar didn't get benched in game 5 of the first round against Indiana for Norman Powell, then raptors don't get out of the first round.

Game 5 was a pivotal game and Demar was 10/22 form the field and scored 34 pts. WTF are you talking about?

When Demar didnt have a big scoring game, nobody on that team could step and fill the scoring void. That was that team's biggest issue.

And for the record, Norm actually came in Carroll/Ross because those guys werent good/consistent.

[mademan]

They had one of the best benches in the league. People shouldn’t use on/off if they aren’t even going to try to understand context.

It's one thing if it was just a one off. But DD has been a net negative player almost every year of his career on (now) 2 different teams. The raps themselves have had a lot of roster turnover during his tenure and he was still almost always a net negative guy. He just doesnt have high impact play.

OK, we'll see the Raptors this year without him(and Kawhi), they should be better according to those stats.

Why go to the future? The Spurs added Demar and won 1 game more. Where is this impact?

[Johnny Bball]

It's one thing if it was just a one off. But DD has been a net negative player almost every year of his career on (now) 2 different teams. The raps themselves have had a lot of roster turnover during his tenure and he was still almost always a net negative guy. He just doesnt have high impact play.

OK, we'll see the Raptors this year without him(and Kawhi), they should be better according to those stats.

Why go to the future? The Spurs added Demar and won 1 game more. Where is this impact?

Why be honest right? and why not post just like this?

[XxIronChainzxX]

The problem in the NBA is simple: guys who are OK at their role are not exactly more valuable than guys who excel in a lesser role if you want a championship team. An excellent 3 & D guy is more valuable than a guy who can create his own shot and shoulder high USG at mediocre efficiency.

No, he's not. That's really the point people keep glossing over. An excellent 3-and-D guy is more valuable ... to a team that already has stars. By themselves, they don't win anything. That's why Robert Covington has missed the playoffs four times in the five seasons where he was a starter (and yes, Minny wasn't on a playoff pace when he was healthy last year). DeMar DeRozan has made the playoffs the last six years in a row. High-impact, "worth Jimmy Butler" Josh Richardson missed the playoffs (yes again, even just counting his "healthy" games, while Jimmy has made it six of the eight seasons he's been a starter. LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't missed the playoffs since 2013 despite having pretty poor results in a lot of advanced stats.

Yes, I know "wins are a team stat". That's my point. You can't isolate a role-player and compare him to a star, even with the caveat of trying to control for the role difference. The stats need to give the innate boost to high-usage players to correctly reflect their impact on the game beyond just efficiency or on-off numbers. Sure, if you have a choice of a Kawhi or a Durant, you go with them and don't even think about DeRozan. But if you had to pick one guy to be the best player on your team, you pick DeMar over the elite role-players every time. That to me suggests that he's more valuable than they are.

I don't disagree. I think we're just talking past each other. I am looking at it from the point of view of building a real title contender. And I favour having a team with all the right pieces ready to go that you can just bring a star right into. The Raptors won a title with Kawhi because they had a ready-made title team supporting cast that they could just put around him. To me, finding those guys takes priority over finding a guy like DeRozan. To me, that is why those guys are more valuable. Teams have had an MVP level guy - sometimes two guys! - and lost a title on the back of their supporting cast.

A DeMar DeRozan guy ultimately has value as trade bait; your absolutely best case scenario is what happened with Kawhi.

All of that being said, I think this forum constantly devalues a 1st option who can handle high usage and score at mediocre league average efficiency. Especially if that guy can create.

Edit: Your post does highlight my fundamental issue with DeRozan. You mention the playoffs. That's not his achievement. That's a team achievement. And other, better players would have done it just the same. Like Butler. Of course Bulter is a nutcase and a malcontent and the team wouldn't have lasted with him. DDs character is something really underrated.

[XxIronChainzxX]

The problem in the NBA is simple: guys who are OK at their role are not exactly more valuable than guys who excel in a lesser role if you want a championship team. An excellent 3 & D guy is more valuable than a guy who can create his own shot and shoulder high USG at mediocre efficiency.

No, he's not. That's really the point people keep glossing over. An excellent 3-and-D guy is more valuable ... to a team that already has stars. By themselves, they don't win anything. That's why Robert Covington has missed the playoffs four times in the five seasons where he was a starter (and yes, Minny wasn't on a playoff pace when he was healthy last year). DeMar DeRozan has made the playoffs the last six years in a row. High-impact, "worth Jimmy Butler" Josh Richardson missed the playoffs (yes again, even just counting his "healthy" games, while Jimmy has made it six of the eight seasons he's been a starter. LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't missed the playoffs since 2013 despite having pretty poor results in a lot of advanced stats.

Yes, I know "wins are a team stat". That's my point. You can't isolate a role-player and compare him to a star, even with the caveat of trying to control for the role difference. The stats need to give the innate boost to high-usage players to correctly reflect their impact on the game beyond just efficiency or on-off numbers. Sure, if you have a choice of a Kawhi or a Durant, you go with them and don't even think about DeRozan. But if you had to pick one guy to be the best player on your team, you pick DeMar over the elite role-players every time. That to me suggests that he's more valuable than they are.

Excellent post which highlights the disconnect here. Some people here get blinded by advanced stats and fail to take them into the context of role, team structure, coaching, system, etc. It reminds me of technical stock traders who look for cups, humps and lumps in the charts but completely ignore company fundamentals.

The Raptor team that made the ECF and took the Lebron/Irving/Cavs to 6 games had guys like Bismack Biyombo, Demarre Carroll, and Patrick Patterson starting for them. Take Demar's scoring off that team and replace him with a 3&D roleplayer and that team doesnt get out of the 1st round.

That team makes the ECF. You don't appreciate how absolutely horrible DeMar was in the first two series. We are talking WOAT shooting. A high end 3&D guy probably gives you the same level of production because - again - the bar is very low.

He absolutely stepped it up against the Cavs. But he had gone into Danny Green level bad against the Pacers and Heat.

[KrazyP]

It's one thing if it was just a one off. But DD has been a net negative player almost every year of his career on (now) 2 different teams. The raps themselves have had a lot of roster turnover during his tenure and he was still almost always a net negative guy. He just doesnt have high impact play.

OK, we'll see the Raptors this year without him(and Kawhi), they should be better according to those stats.

Why go to the future? The Spurs added Demar and won 1 game more. Where is this impact?

The Pacers got better once Paul George left. This means Paul George sucks. This is a stupid argument to make.

(1) The Spurs lost their starting point guard to injury all year, (2) they lost their core vets Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Danny Green and you could also add Gasol to the list since he was a starter who played 77 games for them in 17-18 but age and injuries finally caught up to him in 18-19.

[KrazyP]

No, he's not. That's really the point people keep glossing over. An excellent 3-and-D guy is more valuable ... to a team that already has stars. By themselves, they don't win anything. That's why Robert Covington has missed the playoffs four times in the five seasons where he was a starter (and yes, Minny wasn't on a playoff pace when he was healthy last year). DeMar DeRozan has made the playoffs the last six years in a row. High-impact, "worth Jimmy Butler" Josh Richardson missed the playoffs (yes again, even just counting his "healthy" games, while Jimmy has made it six of the eight seasons he's been a starter. LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't missed the playoffs since 2013 despite having pretty poor results in a lot of advanced stats.

Yes, I know "wins are a team stat". That's my point. You can't isolate a role-player and compare him to a star, even with the caveat of trying to control for the role difference. The stats need to give the innate boost to high-usage players to correctly reflect their impact on the game beyond just efficiency or on-off numbers. Sure, if you have a choice of a Kawhi or a Durant, you go with them and don't even think about DeRozan. But if you had to pick one guy to be the best player on your team, you pick DeMar over the elite role-players every time. That to me suggests that he's more valuable than they are.

Excellent post which highlights the disconnect here. Some people here get blinded by advanced stats and fail to take them into the context of role, team structure, coaching, system, etc. It reminds me of technical stock traders who look for cups, humps and lumps in the charts but completely ignore company fundamentals.

The Raptor team that made the ECF and took the Lebron/Irving/Cavs to 6 games had guys like Bismack Biyombo, Demarre Carroll, and Patrick Patterson starting for them. Take Demar's scoring off that team and replace him with a 3&D roleplayer and that team doesnt get out of the 1st round.

That team makes the ECF. You don't appreciate how absolutely horrible DeMar was in the first two series. We are talking WOAT shooting. A high end 3&D guy probably gives you the same level of production because - again - the bar is very low.

He absolutely stepped it up against the Cavs. But he had gone into Danny Green level bad against the Pacers and Heat.

How many games did they win when Demar didnt have a big scoring game? Who on the team could step up and fill the scoring void?

[mademan]

OK, we'll see the Raptors this year without him(and Kawhi), they should be better according to those stats.

Why go to the future? The Spurs added Demar and won 1 game more. Where is this impact?

The Pacers got better once Paul George left. This means Paul George sucks. This is a stupid argument to make.

(1) The Spurs lost their starting point guard to injury all year, (2) they lost their core vets Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Danny Green and you could also add Gasol to the list since he was a starter who played 77 games for them in 17-18 but age and injuries finally caught up to him in 18-19.

His argument was based on the Raps upcoming season record. I was responding in kind.


Theres plenty of evidence, without going into team records, that DD is a low impact player

[XxIronChainzxX]

Excellent post which highlights the disconnect here. Some people here get blinded by advanced stats and fail to take them into the context of role, team structure, coaching, system, etc. It reminds me of technical stock traders who look for cups, humps and lumps in the charts but completely ignore company fundamentals.

The Raptor team that made the ECF and took the Lebron/Irving/Cavs to 6 games had guys like Bismack Biyombo, Demarre Carroll, and Patrick Patterson starting for them. Take Demar's scoring off that team and replace him with a 3&D roleplayer and that team doesnt get out of the 1st round.

That team makes the ECF. You don't appreciate how absolutely horrible DeMar was in the first two series. We are talking WOAT shooting. A high end 3&D guy probably gives you the same level of production because - again - the bar is very low.

He absolutely stepped it up against the Cavs. But he had gone into Danny Green level bad against the Pacers and Heat.

How many games did they win when Demar didnt have a big scoring game? Who on the team could step up and fill the scoring void?

DeMar had a putrid TS% of 40%. That's not a typo. He attempted 138 FGs and made 44. Who do you expect to step up when he's shooting 20 shots a game, and we aren't counting the other usage stats?

DeMar was taking a ton of shots each game. The team lost when he didn't have a big scoring game because he threw the ball away 15 times a game.

This isn't a situation where we're criticising a guy for shooting league average as the #1 option.

[House12]

The problem in the NBA is simple: guys who are OK at their role are not exactly more valuable than guys who excel in a lesser role if you want a championship team. An excellent 3 & D guy is more valuable than a guy who can create his own shot and shoulder high USG at mediocre efficiency.

No, he's not. That's really the point people keep glossing over. An excellent 3-and-D guy is more valuable ... to a team that already has stars. By themselves, they don't win anything. That's why Robert Covington has missed the playoffs four times in the five seasons where he was a starter (and yes, Minny wasn't on a playoff pace when he was healthy last year). DeMar DeRozan has made the playoffs the last six years in a row. High-impact, "worth Jimmy Butler" Josh Richardson missed the playoffs (yes again, even just counting his "healthy" games, while Jimmy has made it six of the eight seasons he's been a starter. LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't missed the playoffs since 2013 despite having pretty poor results in a lot of advanced stats.

Yes, I know "wins are a team stat". That's my point. You can't isolate a role-player and compare him to a star, even with the caveat of trying to control for the role difference. The stats need to give the innate boost to high-usage players to correctly reflect their impact on the game beyond just efficiency or on-off numbers. Sure, if you have a choice of a Kawhi or a Durant, you go with them and don't even think about DeRozan. But if you had to pick one guy to be the best player on your team, you pick DeMar over the elite role-players every time. That to me suggests that he's more valuable than they are.

High usage middling efficiency players like DeRozan are floor raisers. Another way to think about it is that DeRozan is a good first option for your team, an ok second option, but a terrible 3rd option. Role players are great 3rd or 4th options but terrible first options. Like Danny Green who can’t dribble. It doesn’t make DeRozan a bad player, but you can argue that you wouldn’t want him on your team because if the goal is championships, he’s not good enough to be the first option and is not a good fit if he’s not the first or second option. What makes DeRozan polarizing is that if he’s not contributing offensively, he’s terrible defensively.

[Sixerscan]

The problem in the NBA is simple: guys who are OK at their role are not exactly more valuable than guys who excel in a lesser role if you want a championship team. An excellent 3 & D guy is more valuable than a guy who can create his own shot and shoulder high USG at mediocre efficiency.

No, he's not. That's really the point people keep glossing over. An excellent 3-and-D guy is more valuable ... to a team that already has stars. By themselves, they don't win anything. That's why Robert Covington has missed the playoffs four times in the five seasons where he was a starter (and yes, Minny wasn't on a playoff pace when he was healthy last year). DeMar DeRozan has made the playoffs the last six years in a row. High-impact, "worth Jimmy Butler" Josh Richardson missed the playoffs (yes again, even just counting his "healthy" games, while Jimmy has made it six of the eight seasons he's been a starter. LaMarcus Aldridge hasn't missed the playoffs since 2013 despite having pretty poor results in a lot of advanced stats.

Yes, I know "wins are a team stat". That's my point. You can't isolate a role-player and compare him to a star, even with the caveat of trying to control for the role difference. The stats need to give the innate boost to high-usage players to correctly reflect their impact on the game beyond just efficiency or on-off numbers. Sure, if you have a choice of a Kawhi or a Durant, you go with them and don't even think about DeRozan. But if you had to pick one guy to be the best player on your team, you pick DeMar over the elite role-players every time. That to me suggests that he's more valuable than they are.

You’re largely making a good point here, but I think this also sort missed the point that not many teams would want Derozan to be their best player, and therefore his trade value is limited. A contender wouldn’t want him to be their best player, and a rebuilding team would probably rather just build organically. There just aren’t many teams anymore that want to trade a lot for a 30 year old who will carry them to the 7 seed. It would have to be another San Antonio situation, maybe a team like Detroit where he wouldn’t be the best player but seems to fit fine with Griffin.

That’s seems relevant when we are talking “value”.

Put it this way, I’m pretty confident the Timberwolves could get a first round pick for Covington. The Spurs probably could for Derozan, but would they really get that much more than that?

[LouisLitt]

Excellent post which highlights the disconnect here. Some people here get blinded by advanced stats and fail to take them into the context of role, team structure, coaching, system, etc. It reminds of technical stock traders who look for cups, humps and lumps in the charts but completely ignore company fundamentals.

The Raptor team that made the ECF and took the Lebron/Irving/Cavs to 6 games had guys like Bismack Biyombo, Demarre Carroll, and Patrick Patterson starting for them. Take Demar's scoring off that team and replace him with a 3&D roleplayer and that team doesnt get out of the 1st round.

If demar didn't get benched in game 5 of the first round against Indiana for Norman Powell, then raptors don't get out of the first round.

Game 5 was a pivotal game and Demar was 10/22 form the field and scored 34 pts. WTF are you talking about?

When Demar didnt have a big scoring game, nobody on that team could step and fill the scoring void. That was that team's biggest issue.

And for the record, Norm actually came in Carroll/Ross because those guys werent good/consistent.

Demar shot 31% that series (10% from 3, 62% from FT), for 18pts.

Who can't get you that?

[Chinook]

You’re largely making a good point here, but I think this also sort missed the point that not many teams would want Derozan to be their best player, and therefore his trade value is limited. A contender wouldn’t want him to be their best player, and a rebuilding team would probably rather just build organically. There just aren’t many teams anymore that want to trade a lot for a 30 year old who will carry them to the 7 seed. It would have to be another San Antonio situation, maybe a team like Detroit where he wouldn’t be the best player but seems to fit fine with Griffin.

That’s seems relevant when we are talking “value”.

Put it this way, I’m pretty confident the Timberwolves could get a first round pick for Covington. The Spurs probably could for Derozan, but would they really get that much more than that?

Please, let's don't get into the T&T concept of "value". I really don't like it, and it's not we had been talking about. I think the rest of what you said makes some sense, but it also misses some important facts. DeRozan hasn't been on a train of seventh-seeds. There's zero reason to argue he's a treadmill player in that regard. If you're seriously telling me most teams would rather tank than have the DeRozan Raptors' trajectory over DeMar's last five years there, we'll just have to disagree.

I'm confident that most teams believe DeRozan is a better straight-up player than Covington. Maybe someone like Morey might disagree. Teams might not feel confident in winning a title with DeMar as the best player (and I don't either), but don't think anyone thinks they can "build around" Robert Covington.

[tdotrep2]

he'd be great if surrounded him with 3 and d guys with 1 other player maker and you put him on a leash, he has too many flaws

[jlokine]

no one is talking about demar cause he's not on the raptors and raptor fans overwhelm the GB.

[XxIronChainzxX]

You’re largely making a good point here, but I think this also sort missed the point that not many teams would want Derozan to be their best player, and therefore his trade value is limited. A contender wouldn’t want him to be their best player, and a rebuilding team would probably rather just build organically. There just aren’t many teams anymore that want to trade a lot for a 30 year old who will carry them to the 7 seed. It would have to be another San Antonio situation, maybe a team like Detroit where he wouldn’t be the best player but seems to fit fine with Griffin.

That’s seems relevant when we are talking “value”.

Put it this way, I’m pretty confident the Timberwolves could get a first round pick for Covington. The Spurs probably could for Derozan, but would they really get that much more than that?

Please, let's don't get into the T&T concept of "value". I really don't like it, and it's not we had been talking about. I think the rest of what you said makes some sense, but it also misses some important facts. DeRozan hasn't been on a train of seventh-seeds. There's zero reason to argue he's a treadmill player in that regard. If you're seriously telling me most teams would rather tank than have the DeRozan Raptors' trajectory over DeMar's last five years there, we'll just have to disagree.

I'm confident that most teams believe DeRozan is a better straight-up player than Covington. Maybe someone like Morey might disagree. Teams might not feel confident in winning a title with DeMar as the best player (and I don't either), but don't think anyone thinks they can "build around" Robert Covington.

DeMar DeRozan has been part of 3 of the most humiliating sweeps in NBA history and he's been pretty bad in them, including to sweeps with HCA and one sweep as the #1 seed. I'm honestly not convinced that this is better than being in a perennial 7th seed.

But more than that, it again bothers me that he gets credit for what the whole team accomplished. Especially in a debate about his value, where the counter-argument is that he was no more of a contributor to this success than the other high end role players on the team.

Again, none of this is to devalue the ability of a guy like DD who can be the #1 option at decent efficiency. And this is not to take away the real strides he made in his game. In 2013/2014 he was awful and got Wiggins level kid gloves to grow his game, which to his credit he did. I have tremendous personal respect for DD for what he has done in his career.

But there are limits to his game. They're real. And in a debate about his value, let's not discount them.

[johanliebert]

To say derozan isnt a top 20 player is asinine. OP didnt say nothing outlandish.