When the Chicago Bulls made a sign-and-trade in the 2021 offseason, they were overwhelmingly bashed for the move. DeRozan was fresh off of a few middling seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, and his value wasn’t what it used to be. Since then, however, he has reemerged as an All-Star-caliber player in Chicago.
Prior to his stint in San Antonio, DeRozan was the face of the franchise for the Toronto Raptors. They traded him for what ended up being one year of Kawhi Leonard, but that one year finished with a championship banner hanging in Toronto. Regardless, DeRozan was hurt by the deal, and it’s not hard to understand why.
During a recent appearance on “The Pivot Podcast,” DeRozan opened up about his emotions at the time of the deal. (H/t Timothy Rapp of Bleacher Report)
“It f****d me up, I’m being honest. It’s crazy,” DeRozan said. “I’m more than comfortable talking about it now but for the longest time it f****d me up because, one, that was the place I wanted to be, thought I was going to be, gave everything to. Like my whole motivation and drive was to simply put Toronto on the map. I wanted to follow the whole motto of, you know, Kobe [Bryant], my favorite player, I wanted to play on one team. I had it all mapped out. So when I got traded it was such a blow because at the time I was dealing with my family stuff, like you said, that was when my dad first started getting sick. That was the first time in my professional career where I just felt like out of it, I felt lost. I started to question every single thing.”
DeRozan spent nine years in Toronto, so to be traded out of the blue in the way that he was was certainly a shocker.
