All hail the DeMar DePointGuard era in Toronto?
In an appearance earlier this week on 590 The FAN’s “The Andrew Walker Show,” Raptors head coach Dwane Casey revealed that he plans to give three-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan more time at point guard next season.
“We got to have a better mentality of ball movement, man movement and spacing,” said Casey, per Sportsnet’s Bryan Meler. “DeMar DeRozan, have him handle the ball a bit more as a point guard, a facilitator, a passer. Kyle Lowry moving the ball a bit more, spacing up. We don’t want to give our whole ‘what we’re going to try to do next year’ away, but again it comes down to passing the basketball and better spacing more so, than we know, one-on-one play.”
It’s something of a bold experiment by Casey, as DeRozan is a true shooting guard with a score-first mentality. But he took on greater playmaking duties for the Raptors when Lowry missed time in the second half of last season and has averaged a serviceable 3.9 assists per game over the last four years.
In theory, DeRozan could also run the point with or without Lowry (a 41.2 percent three-point shooter in 2016-17 and a strong spot-up option) alongside him. Perhaps this will be Casey’s way of modernizing his offensive philosophy, which has drawn criticism from a number of different sources over the years.
