DeRozan: Other shooting guards want my mid-range game
DeMar DeRozan would have looked more at home in the NBA of the 80s and 90s - when his post-up and mid-range jump-shooting prowess would've been prized much in the way 3-point shooting is prized in today's game - but the Toronto Raptors shooting guard is enjoying his role as a mold-breaking anomaly.
A month into his eighth NBA season, DeRozan is second in the league in scoring with 30.9 points per game, and he's done that while hitting just six 3-pointers. That's fewer than any player in the top 19, a list that includes big men like Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins, and Karl-Anthony Towns. DeRozan has instead subsisted on power drives, free throws, floaters, and, above all, mid-range pull-ups.
He may be bucking the trend, but he's making it work, posting a career-best true shooting percentage (56.5) and PER (27) - and DeRozan told USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt that other shooting guards have approached him to express their affinity for his old-school game.
"'You're the hope for us two-guards with this mid-range,'" DeRozan said he's been told. "They say, 'I want my mid-range game to be like yours.'"
Though there are calls each season for him to work the 3-point shot more prominently into his game, DeRozan doesn't plan on changing his playing style any time soon, at least not until opposing defenses start finding ways to consistently push him outside his comfort zone.
"My mindset every time I go out there is, 'You have to stop me from doing this first. You've got to make me do something you think I can't do,'" he said. "Until then, I'm going continue to do what I know I'm comfortable doing. ...
"For me, it's just always being resilient and never letting anybody sway my thought process or try to discredit something I may do because I don't do something everybody else does."
The game may have changed, but DeRozan figures there are some things that are always going to work if you can do them well enough - and he's been honing this particular craft his entire career.
"I watch a lot of the old-school guys," he said. "You hear about them scoring 40 a night before there was a 3-point line, and they didn't have that athleticism and speed we have today and still found a way to get it done."