DeMar DeRozan – ’13-’14 season report card
Player’s Name: DeMar DeRozan – Position: Shooting Guard – Overall Grade: A-
| Subject: | Grade: | Comments: |
| Offense | A- | For second consecutive season, he’s improved offensively. Especially, when Rudy Gay left, he took this team on his hands, and helped it through scoring but also through helping others score. 2012-13 Assist per game: 2.5, 2013-14: 4.0. He likes the role of the leader and clutch player, took many important shots last season, thus making him the highest scorer of the 2013-2014 Toronto Raptors. Must work on: His 3-pt shooting (mostly) and jump shot (every year he’s improving it, so I’m sure he will work on this part). He has to improve his ball-handling, which will help him create his own shots and avoid defenders (if for example he crossovers them). |
| Defense | B | He shown improvement on this side, but defense is not his best part. He slightly improved his rebound and steal stats, but he needs this lateral quickness to defend shooting guards. His height (6.7”) and his body is for SF. But he’s playing as a SG, mostly because he cannot defend well opponent SFs, due to he’s not as quick and as focused as necessary. Against teams with strong swingmen like Indiana’s George or Brooklyn’s Johnson he was never responsible of guarding them. The players used to do that were shorter than him (Ross and Salmons who both are 6.6” tall). Even against Lebron James, thinner Ross or older Salmons did guard him. |
| Intangibles | A | There are no issues we can find. He appears to get along well with his teammates and coaches, and is popular with fans. He’s taken the “leader” stamp and feels comfortable with this. He built chemistry with the other leader of this team, Kyle Lowry, and we’ve seen the results of this positive atmosphere, which DeMar is responsible of, because he’s the “oldest” Raptor: 48 wins (franchise record), All Star Selection and Team Playoffs appearance |
| Needs To Improve | DeMar is a gym-rat and I’m sure he will work on this flaws. What, in my opinion, are the things he has to improve? Mostly his 3-point shot and his jump shooting in general. If you want to be a superstar SG, you need to have more methods of scoring except getting fouls and shooting free throws. Almost 1/3 of his points (7 from 22) came from the charity line. His FG% was worse than the previous year (43% from 45%) and even if he improved his 3-ot one, 30.5% is a number that needs improvement. DeMar’s power is the offense, so he must work on this mostly. He must find other techniques of scoring points, and this could come by creating his own shots, so ball-handling is a major issue that he has to improve.He needs to contribute more on rebounds, and try to defend even harder. Hr may not succeed to become an elite defender. Probably his lack of quickness doesn’t help to improve much more on this part but if has almost 50% FG attempts and 40% 3point ones, nobody will criticise him about his defensive flaws. |
Principal’s Summary: He was the leader of this team, along with Kyle Lowry. If the latter leaves, he will be on his own. And he has to be better in order to achieve the same success personally and as a team member. DeMar’s improvement is an inspiration for the other teammates to train hard, so it’s a win-win situation both for him and the Raptors.
2014 – 2015 status: He responded well to the “leader” label. Now he will face another challenge. The “franchise player” label. Can he respond again the same way?