DeMar DeRozan back with the Toronto Raptors? Pass.

DeMar DeRozan plans to decline his player option at season’s end. Does reuniting with the Toronto Raptors make sense?

DeMar DeRozan‘s legacy in Canada is, among other things, complex. Depending on how the rest of his career goes, DeRozan’s time with the Toronto Raptors may go down as the highlight of his NBA career. I certainly hope that’s not how things wind up, but look how Vince Carter‘s career played out?

Both Carter and DeRozan followed similar paths in Toronto, a key difference being their exits – both trades, but the return for Carter fell far short of altering the NBA’s landscape the way acquiring Kawhi Leonard did when he and DeRozan swapped teams in the summer of 2018, along with Danny Green and Jakob Poetl. Kawhi’s work in Toronto is well documented and should he decide to opt-out of his contract after next season, it’s likely he’d hear from the Raptors’ brass about returning to the team he should’ve never left.

Regarding DeRozan, the team should hold off on calling him about returning for what would be a 10th season with the club – the only exception would be if DD was willing to agree to a one-year deal, so he and Kyle Lowry could hit free agency together after the 2020-21 season. I’d rather this didn’t happen, but I’d happily cheer for it if it did.

DeRozan returning to the Raptors would, in my opinion, make the team worse than it is today – both a disinterested defender and ineffective three-point shooter, can we say, unequivocally, that DeRozan is a better option than, say, Fred VanVleet or Norman Powell? A worthy debate. I say no.

Another problem with signing DeRozan is financial ramifications. He isn’t going to come cheap. Toronto is better off going with Powell, at ~12 mil, and Terence Davis who makes peanuts by today’s lofty standards, as an undrafted rookie.

From rags to riches

Search “DeMad DeRozan Raptor highlights” on YouTube. A hefty supply of lengthy videos will appear – over nine seasons, Deebo cut the league up with mid-range precision, doing so mostly in the regular season. Add “playoffs” to the above search query and suddenly the videos get shorter and there are far fewer pages of content.

With the three-point shot being a prerequisite in today’s NBA, DeRozan’s ongoing struggles from distance are a deal-breaker for a lot of teams in the market for backcourt scoring, and Toronto should put itself on the list. For whatever reason, DeRozan’s impressive work rate, especially in the offseason, has failed to deliver a reliable three-point shot. At this point, I doubt it ever happens.

Shifting to the positive, DeRozan’s game has come leaps and bounds since he entered the league as a pimple-faced kid out of USC, might I add with no shot to speak of. In due time, DeRozan transformed himself into one of the league’s most effective mid-range scorers. Think about it – he got so good that the Toronto Raptors were able to parlé his talents into a year’s worth of Kawhi Leonard. He may not have a ring, but DeRozan played a big role in the franchise he once pledged his allegiance to, winning its first title.

In a perfect world, DeRozan would’ve played for a single team his whole career, following in the footsteps of Kobe Bryant, his childhood hero. Unfortunately, if this year has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes things don’t always go according to plan.

DeRozan’s biggest flaw

Besides possessing a prayer for a three-point shot, DeMar DeRozan also tends to come and go on the defensive side of the ball. His ability to lead during his time in Toronto — something DeRozan openly took pride in doing — was compromised due to his unwillingness to defend consistently. How to follow somebody who only wants to lead half the time?

Today’s Raptors benefit from their best players (Lowry/Siakam/VanVleet to name a few) also being the team’s hardest workers. Can Raptors fans say, honestly, that DeRozan was a hard worker? Maybe he was on offence, but it’s a tougher sell convincing me that his heart was in it when his team didn’t have the ball.

Inserting an on-and-off defender into Nick Nurse’s system just won’t work. That’s why passing on DeRozan this offseason is the path to take if you’re the Toronto Raptors. His nine seasons with the club have come and gone, and while he delivered many memories to a generation of Raptors fans, bringing him back would more harm than good – I’m gonna pass on this fairy tale. And I can now only hope Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster do the same thing come the summer.

You can find the original story regarding DeRozan’s rumoured plans to decline his 2020-21 Player Option here (via Bleacher Report)