What's preventing Demar DeRozan from making that leap into a Superstardom like Harden years ago?

[jbk1234]

Players have ceilings. DeRozan's a good player. He's not an elite one.

[Kabookalu]

Not having an elite first step. Relative to other star players he just doesn't explode to the hoop in the same way (he does have his moments though, as I'm sure some people will be ripping up vids of him exploding to the rim for an emphatic dunk just to prove this post wrong). He's great in isolation but mainly thanks to his back to the basket play. He can't really take a lot of players off the dribble. He's done well for himself so far thanks to his pick and roll game where he's always finished amongst the best scoring out of that play.

In high pressure situations like in the playoffs where teams nullify this by blitzing and doubling him it exposes how sorely lacking his first step is when he just can't eviscerate players at will.

[Shock Defeat]

Harden has better handles, and court vision, therefore making him a better playmaker

Harden has better range and can get to the rim easier, therefore making him more efficient offensively.

No slight to DeMar, he just doesn't have the skills that Harden has.

[XxIronChainzxX]

Apart from his defense, which is awful, it's i) his shotmaking ability, which is not great (he's a bad midrange shooter and an awful 3 pt shooter) and ii) his playmaking (instead of being strong to elite like Harden, it's not good). DD also struggles a lot with the trap, hence his awful postseasons.

Just because he shoots a lot from midrange doesn't mean he's any good.

What's he good at bud?

He's elite at getting to the line, although the referring changes so far have impacted him a lot. He's great at finishing at the rim. And while he's not a great shooter, overall his offensive arsenal is diverse enough to score at above average efficiency on high volume. IMO, people on this board greatly underrate the value-added by a 1st option scoring at slightly above average efficiency on high volume. DD provides the team with consistent offence and draws defensive attention. All of this makes him an all-star and arguably an all-NBA player (third team-level, but still).

There's just a gap between all-star/all-nba and superstar/MVP-candidate, and that's the gap between DD and Harden.

[HeartBreakKid]

Oh this thread is on the gen board and not player comparison, explains a lot of the posts here.

[The_Hater]

Range. Handle. Instincts. Passing ability. Athletic Ability. Talent.

[LakerLegend]

Talent.

Harden has more.

[sca]

Lots of hyperbole in this thread. First of all, DeMar has always been a mediocre defender, yeah, but that's not what keeps him from being a top 10 level player in the league. Compared to someone like Harden, the most striking differences are in their 3pt shot, ball handling and playmaking obviously, and while Harden is probably the best of all time at combining these three skills, DeMar is just above average in two of them (playmaking, handling the ball) and below average in the other (3pt). He'll never be a player on current Harden's level and that's alright.

The biggest reason why he never had a good +/- is that aside from the Lowry / DeRozan / Ross / Amir / Valanciunas lineup that we had a few years ago, we never had a good starting unit and always relied on our bench units to help us win games, which almost always came to bite us in the play-offs. Now you may ask why Lowry had a great +/- then. Part of it is because he's been (and probably still is) a vastly better player overall, but Casey has always liked playing him with four bench players against the other team's bench units.

The Lowry / Demar era Raptors have never been a conventional team. We won games with our bench units. We used bigs merely as screen setters / garbage men, and prioritized iso ball over ball movement. But make no mistake, it was still a very complex system with bigs setting lots of on and off ball screens to help the guards get clean looks. This seems to have changed this year, though, as we're sharing the ball more, and our guards have seemed to buy in so far. So, DeRozan has never been very good at distributing the ball (though he's certainly not as bad as this thread makes him up to be), but how much it was the offensive system? This year he's averaging a career high of nearly 5 assists (4.86 after tonight's game), and we have the 4th best offense in the league which improves a little bit when he's on the floor. His combined skill set of ball handling and distributing will never be good enough for him to become a team's primary ball handler, let alone being on Harden's level, but he's a two guard after all.

People also seem to misunderstand the purpose of the mid range shot in the modern NBA. DeMar still takes too much of them for my own liking (though he stopped taking the 16-23 foot fadeaway), but you better have it in your arsenal if you are serious about winning play-off series in this league. Don't you realize that Harden's lack of mid range game comes to bite him in the post-season? Take a look at this shot chart and tell me he couldn't have used a few more mid range shots when the defenses were applying mad amounts of pressure on him behind the three point line.

Anyway, Harden's skillset is really on another level and it's unfair to DeMar to compare the two, but both players have glaring weaknesses to their games, and it's not like Harden is a demigod while DeMar is merely a peasant. Both are All-NBA level players IMO, with Harden having a strong case for being a top 5 player and regular season MVP, which I'm pretty sure will never be the case for DeMar.

[XxIronChainzxX]

People also seem to misunderstand the purpose of the mid range shot in the modern NBA. DeMar still takes too much of them for my own liking (though he stopped taking the 16-23 foot fadeaway), but you better have it in your arsenal if you are serious about winning play-off series in this league. Don't you realize that Harden's lack of mid range game comes to bite him in the post-season? Take a look at this shot chart and tell me he couldn't have used a few more mid range shots when the defenses were applying mad amounts of pressure on him behind the three point line.

I agree, but it's important to it's important to actually be good at drilling the mid range shot. The problem is that there's a cut-off where even that **** FG% is actually not that bad. The 28% 3pt shooting is equal to 0.84 points per shot. That's as good as 42% from midrange, which is around what DD shoots on average. So ultimately you're better off smothering all the other good 3 pt shooters and letting him bomb away. Someone like Dirk can drill those at a way higher rate, meaning he does open up the court.

[taj2133]

He is not a number one guy he would be great number 2 guy say he was on the sixers with joel embid and ben simmons that would be a great team for him.

[PhilBlackson]

Ok I think we've established there's levels to this and Harden is on a different one for various different reasons i.e./ bball IQ, ball handling, passing, shooting etc. etc.

But this nonsense about DeRozan being a so-called glorified scrub or a "borderline" all-star is just that, nonsense. He really doesn't get his props because people want to compare his shooting numbers to players who are just that, shooters. I get that they play the same position i.e./ Beal, Hayward, Thompson etc but those guys came into the league as that. DeMar never was and likely never will be a shooter. He's a player that came into it as pretty much a raw athlete (not elite one either) that has done an incredible job developing himself into a LEGIT all-star (not superstar). Not to mention much of these guys looks are created FOR them not by them.

I see other players that get far more love than him that I've already mentioned like Beal and Hayward (again because there is a new obsession with shooting percentage because it's so deeply ingrained in the style of play now, I get that) but it's annoying reading people completely downplay what DeMar does/done. I'd love for this board to find me another player that carried his team to the best record in the East post ASG without Lowry and kept them as a 50+W team... meanwhile you have a guy like Beal who can barely keep the Wiz above .500 with players like Porter, Oubre and Morris right now or Hayward who made a SINGLE Playoffs appearance even with a roster that included Gobert, Favors, Hood...who are all guys that are EASILY better than anyone on the Raptors when Lowry was out. The guy was the only player since Jordan to average 30+ppg in the first 10+ games of the season and when it was Lowry that completely stunk up the joint last year's Playoffs against the Bucks it was DeMar that carried the Raps past Giannis and the Bucks.

While I get these aren't HOF or superstar accomplishments and he's not a top 10-15 player in the league, it's nothing some supposed glorified scrub or "borderline" all-star can do. People are free to like other players over him for shooting efficiency or whatever but give the guys some respect, he's not perfect but he's earned the right to be considered an all-star and definitely one of the better players in the league.

[dark shark]

He's not as skilled. Doesn't have a a deadly jumper or an imposing physique like Harden.

[Tommygriffin]

DeRozan is pretty much what MJ would be in today's league

[Kabookalu]

DeRozan is pretty much what MJ would be in today's league

...

[YogurtProducer]

DeRozan is pretty much what MJ would be in today's league

This’ll end well

[sca]

People also seem to misunderstand the purpose of the mid range shot in the modern NBA. DeMar still takes too much of them for my own liking (though he stopped taking the 16-23 foot fadeaway), but you better have it in your arsenal if you are serious about winning play-off series in this league. Don't you realize that Harden's lack of mid range game comes to bite him in the post-season? Take a look at this shot chart and tell me he couldn't have used a few more mid range shots when the defenses were applying mad amounts of pressure on him behind the three point line.

I agree, but it's important to it's important to actually be good at drilling the mid range shot. The problem is that there's a cut-off where even that **** FG% is actually not that bad. The 28% 3pt shooting is equal to 0.84 points per shot. That's as good as 42% from midrange, which is around what DD shoots on average. So ultimately you're better off smothering all the other good 3 pt shooters and letting him bomb away. Someone like Dirk can drill those at a way higher rate, meaning he does open up the court.

He's shooting .420 from mid-range as the focal point of offense, i.e. being smothered by the other team's defense. He already opens the court IMO. .420 from mid-range is not bad as long as you have other weapons that keep the defense honest.

[YogurtProducer]

Raptor fans need to chill out. Harden is better at essentially everything than Demar. It’s not really hating on Demar, it’s just the fact. He is a Harden lite player it’s just, he’s lite in every category across the board. Doesn’t mean you can’t still be a good player it just means he isn’t a superstar.

[Tommygriffin]

DeRozan is pretty much what MJ would be in today's league

This’ll end well

Both elite mid-range shooters with no real 3 point shot

[Asif16]

Raptor fans need to chill out. Harden is better at essentially everything than Demar. It’s not really hating on Demar, it’s just the fact. He is a Harden lite player it’s just, he’s lite in every category across the board. Doesn’t mean you can’t still be a good player it just means he isn’t a superstar.

Maybe if you actually read the posts, you would've realized that every raptor fan has claimed Harden to be on another tier/level compared to Derozan. It's the other baseless assumptions we've been trying to debate over

[Johnny Bball]

DeRozan is pretty much what MJ would be in today's league

This’ll end well

Both elite mid-range shooters with no real 3 point shot