Official: DeRozan! Player of the Week p69

[Michael Jackson]

DDR is showing that old man Kobe/MJ game where poise, experience and killer instincts are his main weapons.

He is the closest we have to MJ in a bulls jersey given that Kobe is his idol and Kobe is a derivative of MJ.

The 90s game in a modern era of 3 balls.

Don't know if it's just me, but I feel like teams nowadays are so focused on creating schemes to defend the 3pt line and shot at the rim and give up the midrange jumpers. For us, we don't shoot a lot of 3s anyway but we feast in the midrange, so in a way we're taking advantage of every team's defensive strategy. If they're gonna continue to give that to us, outside of a cold shooting night I don't see why DeMar can't continue this production in the regular season.

Now the challenge will be in the playoffs where everything is gonna be looked at under a microscope, meaning teams WILL take away DDR's midrange game. In that sense, we really need to figure out our halfcourt offense because we're not gonna be able to rely solely on him anymore.

Kawhi had figured that out for sure that's why he was killing it when he was healthy. You have to zig when everyone else zags to find competitive advantage.

[WindyCityBorn]

I’m not concerned with Derozan playing around 35 minutes per game. He’s in great shape and his game isn’t exactly violent when it comes to wear and tear on the body. He’s currently 17th in the league in minutes per game but I noticed some other vets that are averaging more per game like Westbrook, Harden, Durant, and A Davis. P George and Lillard are only a year younger and also averaging more minutes per game. I think as long as we can keep him between 35 and 36, he’ll be fine.

Yeah 35 minutes is fine a 32 year old. Very much in line with other stars his age.

Still, his minutes are more out of necessity because we lack bench scoring and Vuc hasn't been a consistent scorer. We can say what we want about Coby, but unless he becomes a reliable bench scorer or we can trade for a scorer, we'll be running DD pretty close to his redline for the season.

All stars play big minutes out of necessity. Again he’s only 32. He can handle it.

[wojoaderge]

Nice article. I think we all learned that DDR is better than we thought. I think he has known since being in SA how versatile his game can be too. He really is a more athletic but smaller Paul Pierce. Just really an any era fundamental type player. So much fun to watch.

The top of that article says that DDR plays power forward for the Bulls. What has that writer been watching? I don't remember him playing PF, but maybe I'm wrong about that?

Not that it matters much. He's playing well and I'm glad to have him on the Bulls.

He played a lot of PF for SA not so much for the Bulls. He has logged minutes there but it is not his primary for sure. The Bulls are almost positions-less now though aside from Center

He's might be going by what BBRef says. I'm often in total disagreement with their listing of positions. I think they figure it out based on the respective heights of the players on the court a lot the time. Right now, they say DeMar has played 72% of his minutes at PF and 19% at center(!):

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/derozde01.html

[Dan Z]

The top of that article says that DDR plays power forward for the Bulls. What has that writer been watching? I don't remember him playing PF, but maybe I'm wrong about that?

Not that it matters much. He's playing well and I'm glad to have him on the Bulls.

He played a lot of PF for SA not so much for the Bulls. He has logged minutes there but it is not his primary for sure. The Bulls are almost positions-less now though aside from Center

He's might be going by what BBRef says. I'm often in total disagreement with their listing of positions. I think they figure it out based on the respective heights of the players on the court a lot the time. Right now, they say DeMar has played 72% of his minutes at PF and 19% at center(!):

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/derozde01.html

I could be wrong about this, but based on the games I've seen he's playing the SF position.

Center and PF have been Vuc, Bradley, Green, Alize, and DDJ. On a rare occasion Caruso or Ball.

[wojoaderge]

He played a lot of PF for SA not so much for the Bulls. He has logged minutes there but it is not his primary for sure. The Bulls are almost positions-less now though aside from Center

He's might be going by what BBRef says. I'm often in total disagreement with their listing of positions. I think they figure it out based on the respective heights of the players on the court a lot the time. Right now, they say DeMar has played 72% of his minutes at PF and 19% at center(!):

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/derozde01.html

I could be wrong about this, but based on the games I've seen he's playing the SF position.

Center and PF have been Vuc, Bradley, Green, Alize, and DDJ. On a rare occasion Caruso or Ball.

From what I see, on defense, he guards the worst offensive player among the opposing team's SF, PF, or SG. I don't think i've seen him guard a C or PG

[FriedRise]

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[samwana]

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much deserved!
what a great player. he's so much better than i thought he would be. and i liked the signing.

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[kodo]

He played a lot of PF for SA not so much for the Bulls. He has logged minutes there but it is not his primary for sure. The Bulls are almost positions-less now though aside from Center

He's might be going by what BBRef says. I'm often in total disagreement with their listing of positions. I think they figure it out based on the respective heights of the players on the court a lot the time. Right now, they say DeMar has played 72% of his minutes at PF and 19% at center(!):

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/derozde01.html

I could be wrong about this, but based on the games I've seen he's playing the SF position.

Center and PF have been Vuc, Bradley, Green, Alize, and DDJ. On a rare occasion Caruso or Ball.

Yep he's never played PF for us. Sites are listing him at PF because they are listing Green & Caruso as the SF & SG, Vuc is the center, that makes DDR the PF by default. But we know Green & Caruso guard the PFs not Derozan, and he doesn't play screen for ballhandlers like PFs, he's the one running the P&R. It looks like he averages 9.3 possessions per game running the P&R as a ballhandler, 0 possessions per game running the P&R as the screener.

TBH, he could almost be called the PG because he runs the P&R and initiates the offense more than Lavine or Ball.

[kodo]

Demar is on pace to shatter the mid range record FG% since it's been tracked.
Surprisingly enough, he is better than Jordan's last 2 seasons & WAS seasons. Would have been interesting to see earlier Jordan seasons.

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[sco]

Demar is on pace to shatter the mid range record FG% since it's been tracked.
Surprisingly enough, he is better than Jordan's last 2 seasons & WAS seasons. Would have been interesting to see earlier Jordan seasons.

Watch on YouTube

It is amazing how efficient he is.

[GoBlue72391]

Demar is on pace to shatter the mid range record FG% since it's been tracked.
Surprisingly enough, he is better than Jordan's last 2 seasons & WAS seasons. Would have been interesting to see earlier Jordan seasons.

Watch on YouTube

When Demar misses a middy it's genuinely surprising. I knew that crunch time shot over LeBron was going in despite how tough a shot it was.

[dougthonus]

Looking at the the thread title and the current page was 69, I thought for a moment they gave him player of the week just for the one game against the Lakers

[MrFortune3]

DDR has been money. I am really curious to see how the Bulls do in the post season.

[madvillian]

"It really came from Vucevic," DeRozan said back in August. "That was my man, and for years, even when he was in Orlando, we always was tryna figure out 'We need to play together, we need to play together.' A lot of the times it'd be like bs."

"But the opportunity presented itself after he got traded to Chicago. We had a conversation during the season, when we played them late in the season, he was like "Look you're a free agent, let's see what we can do". I was like "I'm gonna keep that on my radar". As things transpired, it just started making more and more sense. Had my conversation with Zach, and just everything else from there fell into place."

https://fadeawayworld.net/nba-media/demar-derozan-reveals-why-he-chose-to-sign-with-the-bulls-imagine-going-there-and-winning-in-chicago-oh-my-god

[weneeda2guard]

I thought he won player of the week for the past week lol but I was thinking "didn't kemba win that? " lol

[Jstock12]

Demar is on pace to shatter the mid range record FG% since it's been tracked.
Surprisingly enough, he is better than Jordan's last 2 seasons & WAS seasons. Would have been interesting to see earlier Jordan seasons.

Watch on YouTube

I'm quite shocked Nowitzki isn't on that list.

[MrSparkle]

The analytic coaching trend of (almost) entirely banning mid-range shots was one of the dumbest things ever in the NBA. Somehow the certainty of a 12 ft. jumpshot (which certain stars could make in their sleep, with their eyes closed and arms tied) got confused with the inefficiency of a 19-21 ft. contested fade-away.

[MrSparkle]

Demar is on pace to shatter the mid range record FG% since it's been tracked.
Surprisingly enough, he is better than Jordan's last 2 seasons & WAS seasons. Would have been interesting to see earlier Jordan seasons.

Watch on YouTube

I'm quite shocked Nowitzki isn't on that list.

Man I am quite the NBA roster buff and I had to think (er google) really hard to remember who the hell Vitaly Potapenko was. I even lived in Boston when he was a Celtic.

[CaPiTanAK]

The Chicago Bulls is a disrespecting franchise, for not offering the max to such a MVP caliber player.

[FriedRise]

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