Derozan interview on ESPN, Tues 10pm EST (TONIGHT!)

[Joker]

I'm almost gonna bet we are going to be playing in Xmas this season against the Spurs lol..."drama" too high bruh

That’d be too obvious and too compelling, but no large American markets or superstars. They’re going Knicks-Thunder on Christmas Day.

[RedX]

Truth is, you can argue that Kwai was the right gamble. Certainly, he's a top 2 talent in my eyes.

But there is a real question here... is it actually worth the gamble?

Listening to Demar and his mindset in this interview, you can see the intangible things that he brought to the table, a mentality, loyalty, it was brand building. It amplified the Raptors brand. It was good for the long term of the franchise.

We gambled our most valued asset, not just performance wise on the court, but as a human being who, coming from Compton USA, was FULLY invested in Canada, Toronto, and the Raptors brand for the length of his career.

I love having Kawhi on this team, but should he leave a year from now, you have to say this was an awful trade. Sure, you guys want to blow it up and start a rebuild, but are you REALLY ready for another 10 year rebuild? Where's there's no promised success, and guess what — we'll be lucky to be in the situation we were in in recent times with Demar / Kyle and a playoff bound team. I think some of you think a rebuild means you'll land Lebron. No guys, we can just as easily land the second coming of Bargnani. And based on how this situation with Demar went, there's really no reason for another player to trust our organization or buy into accepting canada for their entire career. In my mind, we tarnished the bigger picture, and took our organization backwards in terms of respect and credibility.

We traded stability and a good human being who'se entering his prime years, for a chance at 'potential' glory, and a dude who'll jet within a year.... not sure about this one. It can actually sink our entire franchise if we KL leaves.

[SHFT]

I love Demar Derozan always will.

Theres a Spurs forum for that.

Anyone bashing Demar in this thread most not be following Raptors for very long. He was the main piece of an era that completely overhauled our culture and brought some success to Toronto basketball.

U r a bum and Demar is the best Raptor ever. Put some respect on his name u hobo.

I think the most overlooked aspect of this whole debacle is the danger of the person in charge of personnel moves developing personal relationships with team members. Although this is commonly cited as a one of our Uriji’s strengths it can obviously have negative repercussions such as like we are seeing with Demar who obviously feels personally betrayed. I blame Ujiri for not being able to avoid this ugliness but ultimately no one is remembering this 6 months from now.

Anyone bashing demar hasnt been a raps fan very long? FOH.

As a true fan your loyalty should be to the name on the front of the jersey.

We were better with demar on the bench since like forever he lasted 9 great years for us as a franchise. He was never going to retire a raptor because, again, we have consistently been better with him not on the floor.

This will blow over now that he will be constantly covered by american media and they see what we have seen for so long.

Sent from my LG-H915 using RealGM mobile app

[Joker]

Truth is, you can argue that Kwai was the right gamble. Certainly, he's a top 2 talent in my eyes.

But there is a real question here... is it actually worth the gamble?

Listening to Demar and his mindset in this interview, you can see the intangible things that he brought to the table, a mentality, loyalty, it was brand building. It amplified the Raptors brand. It was good for the long term of the franchise.

We gambled our most valued asset, not just performance wise on the court, but as a human being who, coming from Compton USA, was FULLY invested in Canada, Toronto, and the Raptors brand for the length of his career.

I love having Kawhi on this team, but should he leave a year from now, you have to say this was an awful trade. Sure, you guys want to blow it up and start a rebuild, but are you REALLY ready for another 10 year rebuild? Where's there's no promised success, and guess what — we'll be lucky to be in the situation we were in in recent times with Demar / Kyle and a playoff bound team.

We traded stability and a good human being who'se entering his prime years, for a chance at 'potential' glory, and a dude who'll jet within a year.... not sure about this one.

Our current brand is Baby Dinosaurs/Lebronto, and Demar was a major contributor to that.

[RedX]

Truth is, you can argue that Kwai was the right gamble. Certainly, he's a top 2 talent in my eyes.

But there is a real question here... is it actually worth the gamble?

Listening to Demar and his mindset in this interview, you can see the intangible things that he brought to the table, a mentality, loyalty, it was brand building. It amplified the Raptors brand. It was good for the long term of the franchise.

We gambled our most valued asset, not just performance wise on the court, but as a human being who, coming from Compton USA, was FULLY invested in Canada, Toronto, and the Raptors brand for the length of his career.

I love having Kawhi on this team, but should he leave a year from now, you have to say this was an awful trade. Sure, you guys want to blow it up and start a rebuild, but are you REALLY ready for another 10 year rebuild? Where's there's no promised success, and guess what — we'll be lucky to be in the situation we were in in recent times with Demar / Kyle and a playoff bound team.

We traded stability and a good human being who'se entering his prime years, for a chance at 'potential' glory, and a dude who'll jet within a year.... not sure about this one.

Our current brand is Baby Dinosaurs/Lebronto.

?

[Joker]

Truth is, you can argue that Kwai was the right gamble. Certainly, he's a top 2 talent in my eyes.

But there is a real question here... is it actually worth the gamble?

Listening to Demar and his mindset in this interview, you can see the intangible things that he brought to the table, a mentality, loyalty, it was brand building. It amplified the Raptors brand. It was good for the long term of the franchise.

We gambled our most valued asset, not just performance wise on the court, but as a human being who, coming from Compton USA, was FULLY invested in Canada, Toronto, and the Raptors brand for the length of his career.

I love having Kawhi on this team, but should he leave a year from now, you have to say this was an awful trade. Sure, you guys want to blow it up and start a rebuild, but are you REALLY ready for another 10 year rebuild? Where's there's no promised success, and guess what — we'll be lucky to be in the situation we were in in recent times with Demar / Kyle and a playoff bound team.

We traded stability and a good human being who'se entering his prime years, for a chance at 'potential' glory, and a dude who'll jet within a year.... not sure about this one.

Our current brand is Baby Dinosaurs/Lebronto.

?

you’re saying Demar is building our brand, but up until the trade, our latest brand was Lebronto - a team that’s mentally weak in the playoffs that folds to Lebron every year.

[GordanFreeman]

Haven't seen it anywhere, but it looks like Demar has an interview scheduled for tomorrow night at 8PM EST on SportsCenter. Sounds like it will be from Vegas where he will be for the Team USA minicamp, and will be the first publicly spoken words in a week, since the trade happened.

Any guesses on what we might hear?

I hate Derozan.

I commend you for surviving!

[TOStateofMind]

He’s obviously still hurt by the trade cause he wasn’t expecting it. He said himself he still shocked. It is a business though and DD is going though it for the first time. Him calling Kyle and rudy, going to drakes house was a good read.

[Joker]

Wasn’t expecting it? It was rumoured on every sports news outlet every day for like 10 straight days before the trade.

Demar just needed to go on the internet once.

[Chandan]

He’s obviously still hurt by the trade cause he wasn’t expecting it. He said himself he still shocked. It is a business though and DD is going though it for the first time. Him calling Kyle and rudy, going to drakes house was a good read.

Yep when people are shook they immediately agree to interview with ESPN and talk about their feelings.

[WWSRD]

Truth is, you can argue that Kwai was the right gamble. Certainly, he's a top 2 talent in my eyes.

But there is a real question here... is it actually worth the gamble?

Listening to Demar and his mindset in this interview, you can see the intangible things that he brought to the table, a mentality, loyalty, it was brand building. It amplified the Raptors brand. It was good for the long term of the franchise.

We gambled our most valued asset, not just performance wise on the court, but as a human being who, coming from Compton USA, was FULLY invested in Canada, Toronto, and the Raptors brand for the length of his career.

I love having Kawhi on this team, but should he leave a year from now, you have to say this was an awful trade. Sure, you guys want to blow it up and start a rebuild, but are you REALLY ready for another 10 year rebuild? Where's there's no promised success, and guess what — we'll be lucky to be in the situation we were in in recent times with Demar / Kyle and a playoff bound team.

We traded stability and a good human being who'se entering his prime years, for a chance at 'potential' glory, and a dude who'll jet within a year.... not sure about this one.

What's wrong with you?

Why would you settle for someone who QUITS (every year) when defenses ramp up and the game becomes difficult.

Demar has character issues preventing him from being worth his contract, so he had to go.

[nitrous]

Would be smart of him to say he is looking forward to playing for the Spurs now, excited to play for a historic franchise and all-time coach. Can’t wait to build chemistry with his teammates. Etc.

If he goes on camera and continues complaining about how the trade went down and talks bad about the Raptors or Masai, that’s gonna look really bad on him going forward.

Completely agree. I continue to have a huge amount of respect for Demar but this is not a professional way to do things. I moved 8 times as a kid, parents didn't always make it clear it would happen. I also was never making $25m/yr. He is incredibly fortunate to be in the position he is and could have been traded to a far worse franchise.

[MavCarter]

I kind of wish dd handled this like blake did man. Blake just thanked the organization and moved on. He could have easily threw a fit and called out jerry west for trading him after signing a 5 year deal to stay in LA. Signing a 5 year deal could have easily been a "gap of miscommunication" for "im not trading you". Blake was arguably the best or 2nd best player in franchise history too and was in LA for basically the same amount of time DD was here. The dude didn't even get a phone call, he found out through twitter that he was traded. Here we are though, raptors being portrayed as huge snakes

[Southward1]

Derozan really exposing his lack of character. No class

[WuTang_CMB]

Watch on YouTube

[LRJ]

**** ESPN and especially, Chris Bitchass Haynes. Dude wasn't even subtle in his anti-Toronto bs.

IT and Blake Griffin were treated much worse, but Ainge and West and their organizations weren't subject to a full on character assassination.

[Joker]

The more demar talks about what he did for the franchise, the more people are going to bring up his playoff catastrophes, so I don't get the PR strategy there.

[Southward1]

**** ESPN and especially, Chris Bitchass Haynes. Dude wasn't even subtle in his anti-Toronto bs.

IT and Blake Griffin were treated much worse, but Ainge and West and their organizations weren't subject to a full on character assassination.

Chris Haynes is being openly bias against Toronto and the raptors. He's clearly a misinformed dumbass. I wouldn't be surprised if he says something prejudicial against canadians soon.

And it's clear the american media are bias against the raptors. They interview Demar regarding Masai saying he wouldn't be traded? Yet Masai flat out said publicly nobody was untouchable back in June? They just want to generate the story they want, which is anti-canada even if it's filled with logical fallacies, bias intentions and gaping holes in the timeline.

I just wished the canadian media would have a backbone, but they don't either. It's all about Masai's apology to Demar, yet Masai really didn't apologize to Demar. I get Demar was a good kid and a possibly a great human being and ambassador, but he wasn't a great player. Get over the trade already

[Sherlock]

I don't get how our fans can call DeMar's reaction unprofessional yet support the most unprofessional basketball player of the last 12 months coming to our team in return

We broke up with our high school girlfriend who we've been with for 9 years. She always got along with all of our friends and you knew she was always going to be faithful, but truth is she kinda dragged us down from reaching our best potential and never made us a better person and so we knew we didn't want to marry her. The breakup was going to come eventually. If not now, then in a year or two.

Now we're dating a supermodel who cheated on her last boyfriend. We're not really expecting it to last long term, but damn if it won't be a fun fling for a little while.

[Northface82]

Watch on YouTube