DeMar DeRozan is quickly changing his career narrative, and it’s somewhat unprecedented.
During this past offseason, DeMar DeRozan wasn’t the first free agent off the shelf. Not even the second or third. In fact, he was one of the last notable free agents to agree to a contract. Even when it was announced that the Chicago Bulls would be the landing spot, there were still plenty of questions.
Nevertheless, DeRozan was headed to the Bulls and many wondered what the former all-star would have left in the tank. Through the first 30 games of the season, many teams are now looking foolish after overlooking DeRozan.
Not only has DeRozan been a standout so far this season for the Bulls, but he’s also arguably been their best payer and should be in the race for the NBA MVP award. No, that’s not an overreaction. He’s had that type of season for the Bulls thus far this season.
And he’s a big reason why they’re second-ranked in the Eastern Conference even after being derailed by health and safety protocol.
At age 32, DeRozan is arguably having the best season of his career thus far; he’s averaging 27 points, five rebounds, and four assists on 50 percent shooting from the field and 33 percent shooting from 3-point range. He’s also on pace to finish with his best PER (player efficiency rating) of his career thus far, at 24.09.
If that wasn’t unprecedented enough, what e’s doing specifically in the fourth quarter to close out games is extremely impressive. DeRozan leads the NBA with 8.0 fourth-quarter points scored per game.
Throughout his previous 12 seasons, DeRozan has never been a top 10 fourth-quarter scoring player. The fact that he’s enjoying this type of season 12 seasons is nothing short of impressive. He’s proving the naysayers wrong, especially those that wrote him off after his continued struggles with the Toronto Raptors and his somewhat disappearance from the NBA limelight with the San Antonio Spurs.
For the majority of his career, DeRozan has been a really good player. He’s a four-time All-Star and has made an All-NBA team once before. He’s one of the more accomplished Bull on the roster, despite the fact that his reputation before this season was known as a huge underperformer – or choker – in the postseason.
However, at nearly the halfway point of the season, DeRozan has done g rest job in starting to change that. He’ll still need to prove it in the playoffs, but he’ll have that opportunity very soon.