DeMar DeRozan needs to be confident about his threes.
Focused on improving and adding another threat to his game, DeMar DeRozan spent the offseason working on his three-pointer—to not much avail.
The Toronto Raptors are finally back for a new season and players are eager to show their improvement on the court. Unfortunately, DeMar DeRozan left his three-point consistency back in the practice gym. After a long series of photos, videos and tweets building up hype for DeMar’s jump shot, he’s barely showed us much.
What did DeMar do this offseason?
It started when DeMar put a photo of him making 450 threes out of 700 on his Instagram story. It gave fans hope that his three-pointer might be getting better.
That definitely hasn’t been the case, however, in preseason he was shooting 20% from deep. A lot of his shots are good looks since defenders still give him space at the three to guard him. Then in the Raptors 2017-18 season debut, DeRozan didn’t even attempt a three, regardless of the space given to him. The next game against the Philadelphia 76ers, DeRozan managed to score 30, but only took one three which he missed. Finally, against the San Antonio Spurs, DeMar made two of his five threes. But then again, DeMar didn’t even attempt a three against the Golden State Warriors. DeRozan is now shooting 33% from three, which is just barely under league average of 34%.
Shoot your shot DeRozan.
So when will DeRozan unleash his newfound three-point shot? At this point nobody knows. It’s early in the season so it could be said that DeMar is saving it. It wouldn’t make any sense though if the plan was to help the Raptors spacing, and you’re not shooting. More than likely this is caused by DeMar’s confidence, making him hesitate to shoot threes.
The truth is DeRozan works on his three’s every offseason, and he hasn’t gotten much better. Just because a player can make shots in a defender-free gym doesn’t mean he can hit them in an NBA game.
DeMar’s inconsistencies will show as soon as the Raptors get into the playoffs. If he started to make more three’s for the Raptors, he could improve their offense rating.
For now, it seem’s like Raptors fans were misled to believe DeMar had some type of consistency with the three-ball. It’s very early in the season so DeRozan could show us something down the road. He’s still expected to be the same scoring monster he was last year without a three-pointer. The 6’6 guard is much more focused as of now on the Raptors ball movement, after moving away from a ISO focused playbook. The Raptors are benefiting from that more than they would benefit from an ISO three from DeRozan. If DeMar can keep his three-point percentage above league average, Raptors have a good shot at grabbing a top seed in the east.
If the Raptors guard can score consistently without a three, maybe we should believe the saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”.