Here is some smart career advice if you’re a one-time all-star shooting just 39 percent from the floor on the year who has never really gained rave reviews for your defence:
Take some time off. Take a lot of time off. Take more than half the season (to date)… off. Then sit back and watch your legend grow.
That’s the situation DeMar DeRozan has found himself in since he slid awkwardly to the floor against the Dallas Mavericks on Nov. 28 tearing a tendon in his groin, which hurts to even type.
The former all-star made his return Wednesday night against the Philadelphia 76ers – presumably he needed a scrimmage against the junior varsity before Friday’s showdown with the Eastern Conference-leading Atlanta Hawks. The Raptors won 100-84 to improve to 26-12.
But the result was almost secondary. Fans at the Air Canada Centre were downright giddy about having DeRozan back. They crave familiar, and DeRozan is part of the ACC furniture now. He got a standing ovation in pre-game introductions and another delighted squeal – or whatever it sounds like when 19,800 people are happy – when he touched the ball for the first time, even if he bricked up a mid-range two.
DeRozan took the whole thing in stride, which is the point: He is the Raptors emotional keel. He keeps things on the straight and narrow, getting neither too ruffled nor too bubbly.
He treated his first game back as you would expect.
“I just tried to be level-headed and treat it like a normal game,” he said after playing like he does, most of the time. “I didn’t want to get too high. I wanted to come out and play and not try and do too much. Just play within the rhythm of the game.”
There was good reason for the fans’ anticipation. The Raptors had lost five of six coming into Wednesday night. They were 13-3 with DeRozan and kings of the East. They went 12-9 in his absence, dropping to a tie for third in the conference and trying to keep the runaway Hawks in sight.
The Raptors aren’t quite in crisis mode – the East is too forgiving for that – but they have been giving up a league-worst 111.9 points per 100 possessions in January, so change was welcome as Toronto slipped from being the eighth most efficient defensive team in the NBA when he was hurt, to 22nd in the league upon his return.
Which is the funny thing about the Raptors without DeRozan. He was missed differently than anyone thought.
For a while everything went along just fine.
The Raptors rolled off nine wins in 11 starts before Christmas. Their offence seemed to get more efficient. Greivis Vasquez got some room to breathe off the bench. There was a little stretch where Terrence Ross looked like he was going to take advantage of the freedom of not having to play fourth or fifth fiddle the whole time and maybe break out a little bit.
And Jonas Valanciunas!
Valanciunas was somewhat of a revelation. Moved up on the Raptors pecking order he picked up some extra 15 or so shots that typically go to DeRozan, and Kyle Lowry seemed to grow more comfortable looking to Valanciunas as a primary option.
But as DeRozan’s absence dragged on, the Raptors hearts – head coach Dwane Casey’s in particular – grew fonder. His return made him downright nostalgic.
“He’s gone from a young man to man,” said Casey. “That’s the difference with a lot of players, we want guys to be superstars overnight and that doesn’t happen in this league. He’s gone through the process. He’s gone through the rigors of the NBA, he has learned from it and he’s grown up as a man.”
He’s a man who exudes calm, which the Raptors needed. What the Raptors learned in his 21 games away is that without the foundation-like steadiness he provides, Toronto kind of flails.
“We just have to slow down,” was his prescription for the Raptors woes. “I think that when I was out we were playing really fast. I don’t think that’s us, to play fast up and down, so just slow the game down and play at our pace.”
He was getting to the free throw line 7.8 times a game when he got hurt, tied for fifth in the NBA. In his absence the Raptors got to the line seven times less. Through the course of a night that meant four or six more times that the game didn’t stop and allow Casey to make a substitution or simply allow his teammates to catch a breather.
Similarly the offence lacked focus. There was no one to take the ball-handling over from Lowry who seemed to have hit a wall, as his 36.5 percent shooting and 3.8 turnovers a game in January would attest.
The Raptors seemed to need to play faster to score – and it worked as Toronto averaged 108 a game without DeRozan, compared to 107.6 points a game in the first 16 games of the year – but that meant less defensive focus and it showed.
Last night was not a game for framing. Toronto jumped out to a 34-19 first quarter lead, allowed the Sixers to cut the lead to four at half time and never quite succeeded in blowing them out, which was fine as it gave DeRozan a meaningful fourth quarter to play and he responded with eight of his Raptors-high 20 points as he went 9-of-14 on the night with four rebounds and three assists in 28 minutes.
But mainly DeRozan’s presence was the equivalent of returning home to a clean house and dinner in the oven. Things seemed right.
“He brings a calmness about him,” said Casey. “Things get helter-skelter, we call a play and there’s a calmness about him because the ball is secure, he makes great decisions, allows Kyle to spot up, Greivis to spot up, Lou, whoever it is. He can quarterback as well as score. That’s what he brings to the table. “
His first two baskets came on mid-range post-ups that he drained without effort, scoring in offensive sets the Raptors returned to like you might settle in for a welcome re-run on a weekend afternoon on the couch.
But even more important was that with the ball in his hands the game slowed down and the Raptors had a sense of control. Whether it was because DeRozan would use a couple of probing dribbles before launching a skip pass to Pat Patterson that led to a touch pass to the corner that led to a Vasquez triple, or if the young vet was putting Sixers rookie Jerami Grant into the spin cycle before faking him off his feet and drawing a foul for a trip to line, DeRozan helped his team dictate the pace.
So welcome back DeMar DeRozan, you were missed more than we thought and in ways we didn’t know.