CHICAGO — DeMar DeRozan knows himself.
It’s a simple thing, DeRozan says, but it’s definitive as a player and a man. DeRozan grew up with a mother and father who refused to let him dull his personality or mold it after others. It’s the way he wants to raise his own children — to be able to sit calmly in who they are as human beings before and above anything else.
There’s plenty to highlight in DeRozan’s career renaissance with the Chicago Bulls. At 32, he leads the NBA in total points this season with 1,547 (28.1 per game) and is averaging 37.6 over his last eight games.
But knowing who you are? DeRozan says that’s the starting point of everything he has achieved this season.
“It’s the way I was raised: never shying away, never trying to be someone you’re not, never trying to be somebody else,” DeRozan said. “You’re not being true to yourself if you’re doing that. If you believe in yourself, you have to stick to it.”
In the eight years between his first All-Star Game selection in 2014 and his fifth this year, DeRozan admits things feel a bit different. He grew to become the heart of the Toronto Raptors, then had his heart broken by a July 2018 trade to the San Antonio Spurs. He went three years without an All-Star selection, fading somewhat in a league always hungry for newer, younger superstars.
But even this season, DeRozan says he finds comfort in the consistency he provides himself — different setting, different team, different results, but still the same DeMar.
Few players in the league have a comfort zone as clearly carved out as DeRozan in the midrange. Over the years, DeRozan expanded his identity by honing his ballhandling and distribution, becoming the type of playmaker who can turn games on a dime by scoring himself or by feeding teammates.
But the core of DeRozan’s game remained steadfast even as the league moved further away from taking long 2-pointers.
It took trust in himself for DeRozan to stick to his style. Other players moved out, stretching the game far beyond the 3-point line. DeRozan stayed put. And over the course of a decade, he has become a waking nightmare to analytics sycophants throughout the league.
It’s simple logic to stick to the midrange for a player who can score 40 points without taking a single 3-pointer. DeRozan is shooting 46.4% from the field for his career — and 51.7% this season, including 60.7% over his last seven games.
“His shooting percentages are mind-boggling to me,” Bulls coach Billy Donovan said.
DeRozan went 11 games in January without making a 3-pointer, taking only eight shots behind the arc during that stretch. He wasn’t even aware of the drop-off in 3-point attempts. After breaking the streak, he just laughed: “Maybe I’ve got to do that again.”
DeRozan’s go-to finisher hasn’t been a secret for ages — the Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly issued a $100 fine to every player who bit on his pump fake during the 2018 playoffs. But as teams continue to fall victim to DeRozan’s midrange dominance, it’s not for lack of trying.
“When he gets to his spot, there’s nobody that can stop him,” Bulls center Nikola Vučević said.
It’s a dilemma for opponents — when a perimeter player is shooting 51.7% from the field, what else can you do but jump? DeRozan’s own teammates don’t even have an answer.
“I can’t stay down on it, so I can’t tell you,” forward Derrick Jones Jr. said.
Catch DeRozan in the air and he’ll make the payment even harsher. He’s more than happy to take his points at the foul line, shooting 86.6% on eight free throws per game.
DeRozan’s patience can be almost cruel. He’ll pause on his pump fake long enough to let an opponent leap skyward, land and bounce back upward off the balls of his feet in a half-hearted attempt to regain some semblance of contesting the shot.
It’s a trademark skill, but DeRozan said the effectiveness of the fake comes from its simplicity.
“I don’t let nobody alter my shot,” he said.
Even with those stats and standout performances, DeRozan still sneaks up on opponents. That’s by design, a longtime tactic honed by decades of watching boxing and picking the brains of fighters such as Floyd Mayweather.
DeRozan likes to grow into games, finding weaknesses in the first quarter that he won’t fully exploit until the fourth.
“I’m not a knockout puncher, but I am going to wear you down,” DeRozan said. “I know I can go the length, however long I need to go.”
This studious calculation is the reason DeRozan leads the league in fourth-quarter points with 443.
He has built a near-mythic reputation in crunch time with buzzer-beating shots and double-digit final quarters. When the ball is in DeRozan’s hands in the fourth, anxiety melts away for the Bulls.
“He’s already a monster,” guard Coby White said Monday after DeRozan scored 19 of his 40 points in the fourth for his sixth straight game with 35 or more points. “He turns into a monster times two.”
DeRozan may be a monster on the court, but it’s cloaked in reticence. Teammates describe him as laid-back, even-keeled, the type of guy to speak at a normal volume even in the final minutes of a tied game.
It’s not that he doesn’t care. When DeRozan wants to, he’ll make himself heard. But he doesn’t trash talk, mainly because he doesn’t need to — his teammates have that bit covered.
Jones said he relishes when his friends are matched up on DeRozan. He’ll start the trash talking on the phone and carry it onto the court. He’ll chirp at opponents right in front of DeRozan, knowing they’ll rarely talk back out of fear of what move the All-Star might drop on them in quiet retaliation.
“I’m gonna let you know how bad of a night you’re gonna have guarding him,” Jones said. “I ain’t gonna put them under the bus … but they know they got cooked.”
It takes a certain type of leader to inspire his teammates to talk trash for him. But that’s the culture DeRozan is carving into the Bulls roster.
DeRozan leads the same way he plays — talking less, doing more, letting his daily actions set a standard for the rest of the roster.
“When he speaks, everybody hears,” Jones said. “Everybody listens.”
As the Bulls take a five-game winning streak and the top spot in the Eastern Conference into the All-Star break, the thing that makes it all sweeter for DeRozan is that this wasn’t supposed to work in the first place.
At least that’s what a noisy contingent of media and fans were saying in the summer. They questioned everything from his scoring ability to his work ethic — but the loudest doubts centered on DeRozan’s ability to connect with Zach LaVine.
DeRozan knew something different. The pair worked out together for the first time over the summer after LaVine brought home a gold medal from the Tokyo Olympics.
DeRozan said he didn’t care as much about the on-court details — all of that, he was certain, could be built later. But he wanted to ensure that LaVine wanted the same things out of basketball and out of the bigger picture.
Once that clicked, DeRozan said, everything else was inevitable. When DeRozan arrived for voluntary training after Labor Day, he found a team finally equipped to let him shine fully.
“The first day I stepped in, everybody was hungry,” DeRozan said. “Everybody had a chip on their shoulder.”
Lately, DeRozan feels like every day is Wednesday, a hump day. He’s tired, sore, longing for injured teammates to return. Scoring at least 35 points with at least 50% shooting in seven straight games set an NBA record, yes — but it was also exhausting, a byproduct of too many injuries and not enough outlets for production left on the roster.
As both a league veteran and a parent, DeRozan long ago abandoned any thoughts of going out after games.
“This time around, I go home and sit my ass down,” DeRozan said.
This point of the season consists of late-night stretching and packing his long legs into a NormaTec recovery suit. Days off revolve around taking as few steps and drinking as many fluids as possible. Even flights to and from games have to be utilized as recovery opportunities.
By now, DeRozan knows this isn’t extra work — it’s fundamental to getting ahead. That matter-of-fact viewpoint is fueled by one of his simple mantras: “Nobody’s gonna feel sorry for you.”
“You’re going to have down days,” DeRozan said. “You’ve just got to keep pushing, keep pushing, keep trucking through to catch that second wind. … We know it’ll be worth it. That’s when the rest comes.”
DeRozan isn’t quite past the threshold of becoming a first-name-only superstar like Michael or LeBron or Steph or Giannis. That’s OK — for now. To DeRozan, legacy is less about the quick flash of fame and more about what he builds for his team, his family and his future.
As he leads the Bulls toward the playoffs, he’ll focus on what it means to be DeMar — as a Bull, as an All-Star and perhaps one day as an NBA champion.
