DeRozan drops 40 on helpless Pistons

As far as motivation goes, it appears that DeMar DeRozan had plenty of it coming into the Toronto Raptors' first game of the 2016-17 season. The Raptors swingman scored 40 points - two off his career high - in Toronto's 109-91 win over the Detroit Pistons Wednesday night.

It's the highest individual scoring output in Raptors' opening-game history, passing Vince Carter's 39 points in 2003.

Before the season, DeRozan did not hide his displeasure over his perceived low placement in Sports' Illustrated's annual player rankings (for the record, The Washington Post's Tim Bontemps ranked him similarly, and theScore's own list had him 28th).

DeRozan and Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas, who also had a monster night with 32 points and 11 rebounds, became the first pair of teammates in NBA history to score 40 and 30 points, respectively, in a season opener.