DeMar DeRozan is underrated all of a sudden

[homecourtloss]

Now that he isn't on the Raptors, people forgot about him. He's improved his rebounding and assists and he is still a top 20 player in the league.

I feel the OP wants to agitate people who look at analytics/impact stats and have them reply to these threads to tear them down.

“Derozan is underrated and is a top 20 player.”

“Jamal Crawford is underrated and is a scoring machine.” https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1876431

“Julius Randle can average 20/10 and could be an All-star.” (He can, but the “20/10” part ignores defensive metrics. https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1877160

“Pierre Jackson scores 60 points. Why didn’t an NBA team give him a chance?” https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1876998

“Ty Lawson was a beast. Will he play in the NBA again?”
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1875468

“How was Mor Harkless a starter? His points, rebounds, assists were all really really low as a starter.“ https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1874403

“Most and least important positions in the NBA? Most is PG, least is SF” https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1874307

[Hroz]

DeRozan was close to an all star in the West and was a starter in the east last year.

Plus he was a big part of the Spurs getting to the playoffs in the West.

Fair to say he is a top 25 player

[LeMasta]

Not really, and he's not a top 20 player... cmon man. Maybe top 30

[HeartBreakKid]

DeMar let's his anxiety get the best of him come playoff time

That's why he under-performs

Nope, just is not a great scorer. Someone who hovers around league average efficiency during the RS is going to do very poorly in the PS.

[Def Leppard]

DeRozan is not nor has he ever been a top 20 player and yes he did improve last year.

Didn't he make all NBA last year? Like the year before this last year? I could be wrong

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[Buckeye-NBAFan]

DeMar DeRozan is overrated all of a sudden.

Durant, Irving, Horford, Giannis, Leonard, Oladipo, Myles Turner, Kemba, Siakam, Beal, Griffin, Butler, Simmons, Embiid, Curry, Green, Thompson, Aldridge, Harden, George, Gobert, LeBron, Davis, Conley, Gallinari, Westbrook, Towns, Jokic, Lillard, Nurkic are better for sure, a couple other guys like Donic and KP and John Collins could be better by next year. So he's outside the top 30.

[HeartBreakKid]

DeRozan is not nor has he ever been a top 20 player and yes he did improve last year.

Didn't he make all NBA last year? Like the year before this last year? I could be wrong

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He did, but that doesn't mean that he is automatically a top 20 player. It would mean that media correspondents like Skip Bayless overrate him.

[The_Hater]

DeMar let's his anxiety get the best of him come playoff time

That's why he under-performs

Nope, just is not a great scorer. Someone who hovers around league average efficiency during the RS is going to do very poorly in the PS.

He’s pretty good at getting his shot off and drawing fouls which are good offensive skills to have. And he’s improved his willingness to pass quite a bit which helps as well while still not committing a lot of TO’s. His lack of range and poor shot selection at times does push him down to league average efficiency but at least he’s not Monta Ellis or Kobe Bryant’s final 2 years awful.

The other negatives are his awful defense, his terrible tunnel vision at times, his inability to play off the ball or spread the floor off ball and the head scratching part where year after year his teams play better when he’s on the the bench then on the floor. I believe that last part has happened 6 of the past 7 years now which seems absolutely incredible for a 4 time allstar.

[bearadonisdna]

He was pretty good in the playoffs.
23 PER with a slight uptick in production.
That demar derozan would/should still be part of an all star convo.

Roughly would say all stars are the top 24-30.
He is right on the cusp of that tier.

[RaptorPride]

One thing about DeMar is he always comes back a better player every year.

[Klayforspicy]

His calling card is a secondary playmaker with occasional scoring outbursts.

[dhsilv2]

DeRozan is not nor has he ever been a top 20 player and yes he did improve last year.

Didn't he make all NBA last year? Like the year before this last year? I could be wrong

Sent from my BBE100-5 using RealGM mobile app

He did, though the allstar team makes up at least 24 players and often with injuries gets closer to 30. He also was in the east with less talent and lets be honest the allstar game isn't exactly the best metric of the best players...it isn't even done after the end of the season.

[dhsilv2]

DeMar let's his anxiety get the best of him come playoff time

That's why he under-performs

Nope, just is not a great scorer. Someone who hovers around league average efficiency during the RS is going to do very poorly in the PS.

He’s pretty good at getting his shot off and drawing fouls which are good offensive skills to have. And he’s improved his willingness to pass quite a bit which helps as well while still not committing a lot of TO’s. His lack of range and poor shot selection at times does push him down to league average efficiency but at least he’s not Monta Ellis or Kobe Bryant’s final 2 years awful.

The other negatives are his awful defense, his terrible tunnel vision at times, his inability to play off the ball or spread the floor off ball and the head scratching part where year after year his teams play better when he’s on the the bench then on the floor. I believe that last part has happened 6 of the past 7 years now which seems absolutely incredible for a 4 time allstar.

I think and I'm guilty at times...some of us often under value the ability to create a shot. That said he's got an awful lot of flaws that reduce the value add from his shot creation.

[XxIronChainzxX]

Yes, he's a much better player than people try to argue. He has more impact on winning too. People have gotten themselves tangled up when it comes to stats like RPM. Their purpose is to give us a way to understand how good players are good, not to tell us who is good in the first place. "High-impact players" don't consistently get their teams to the playoffs like "low-impact" stars do.

DeRozan isn't a superstar/cornerstone guy. He's not better than Aldridge. But he's way better than a lot of the guys everyone thinks are more valuable. For it being his first year with the Spurs, I thought he played pretty damned well, especially in the first half of the season. Hopefully, he and Pop can build on that just like LMA and Pop did. Getting everything to work with Murray coming back isn't going to be easy, but the upside is definitely there.

That is the real shame about Pop doing the USANT thing. This roster has talent that's going to need a great gameplan to make work to its highest capacity, and not only will they have to do so minus their top two assistants, but they won't even have their head coach until almost training camp.

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.

[GeorgeMarcus]

I don't even think he's a top 30 player. Dude might be top 40. Think stronger arguments can be made for top 50. He's just not a high impact player on either end of the floor. The San Antonio offense was better with him off the floor last season. The San Antonio defense was better with him off the floor last season. He ranked a stupid low 215th in RAPM last season.

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.

Negative on/off in 9/10 regular seasons and 6/6 playoffs. That’s with completely different teammates and rotations. At a certain point, you gotta call a spade a spade.

[gorz]

Hes very underrated on realgm. The way some ppl talk about him you would have thought he was a scrub. What makes oladipo booker or beal better than him?..none of those guys have proven anything yet.

[dhsilv2]

Hes very underrated on realgm. The way some ppl talk about him you would have thought he was a scrub. What makes oladipo booker or beal better than him?..none of those guys have proven anything yet.

Who has booker high on their list?

Dipo is an elite defender when he's on, so that's a no brainer. Beal is just better offensively and it's pretty obvious there. I never get this "Proven" stuff. If they can do it in a game then they proved it for this guy.

[HeartBreakKid]

Hes very underrated on realgm. The way some ppl talk about him you would have thought he was a scrub. What makes oladipo booker or beal better than him?..none of those guys have proven anything yet.

Beal and Oladipo are better scorers than DeMar...and Oladipo is a significantly better defender. They both can shoot as well.

No one thinks Devin Booker is good, so that's a strange name to bring up.

[Bornstellar]

I actually think his teammate Aldridge is the underrated one. Dude has absolutely carried the Spurs to the playoffs and just shy of 50 wins in two season were Spurs had a myriad of injury issues and new personnel. And he never really gets credit for being the workhorse and carrying SA on his back for 2 years now.

That being said I do somewhat agree with the OP. People treat DD like he is some garbage role player when he is a top 30-40 player in the league. Especially now that the league has moved to a three point chuck fest his game is no longer appreciated. He is a solid player. I just dislike his tendency to force it in crunch time and he let's the refs get inside his head way too often even if he does have a legit gripe most of the time.

[NashtyNas]

Nope, he is finally fairly rated. There aren't people trying to sell us that DeMar is some superstar or franchise player anymore - people have finally admitted he's nothing but a regular season volume scorer.

He doesn't show up in the clutch, he doesn't show up in the playoffs and his range is still extremely questionable.

Maybe the Spurs shot doctor(s) can work some magic like they did for Kawhi, who knows.

I don't think he's a top 30 player let alone top 20.

Considering production and age purely among shooting guards, I'd rather have Harden, Thompson, George, Mitchell, Butler, Beal, Doncic, Oladipo, Booker and McCollum over him. So I'd rank him 11th among shooting guards.

Depending on other pieces you have on the team, I may also take Middleton, J. Murray, J. Richardson and Hield over him given the age and contracts for the last 3 and the shooting from them all.

Derozan is a glorified version of Andrew Wiggins - at least he cares about basketball and improved from where he started.