Appreciating DeMar DeRozan’s impact on Toronto, as his return approaches
This past December, I was eating lunch with some of my friends at the Eaton Centre food court in downtown Toronto, right across from Ryerson University’s campus. We got to talking about the Raptors.
At one point, I was getting a little worked up while talking about how Fred VanVleet needs to play more off the ball as a spot-up shooter, and at some point, the word “trash” may have been used lightly to describe VanVleet’s play with the ball in his hands.
A middle-aged white guy at the table next to us jumped in. “Hey, VanVleet’s really good,” he said. “You’ve got to Google his plus-minus. Google it.”
I didn’t Google it. I know that Fred VanVleet’s a good role player and the guy at the other table totally missed the point. But here’s the real point he made me think about: When did Toronto become a place where every public conversation about the local pro team draws a random stranger’s attention?
Look, I can’t pretend like I know whether or not this kind of thing was happening in the Eaton Centre in 2013, mostly because I was 15, living and going to school in the hockey-dominated suburbs north of Toronto. But even if it was, I’m pretty confident it didn’t happen as frequently as it does now. Basketball has been growing globally for a long time now, and southeastern Canada is no exception. But a rising interest in the Raptors was never really part of that growth. Some people, like one of my rep basketball coaches, called them the “Craptors” and dismissed any hope of them ever becoming relevant. In 2019, though, the Raptors are an unavoidable topic in the city.
When I’m working at Starbucks, I talk to co-workers and customers about last night’s game. When I’m on the subway, I see people’s Raptors hoodies and snapbacks and winter hats. When I’m in class, I overhear people three rows in front of me talking about the Marc Gasol trade and the Jeremy Lin signing.
Credit Masai Ujiri for building a respectable and relevant franchise. Credit Kyle Lowry for being the heart and soul of the best era in franchise history, as well as the team’s best player for most of that era. Credit Vince Carter for being the most transcendent Raptors star, the one who saved the NBA in Canada and inspired millions of young Canadians to adopt the sport. But this new era of Raptors basketball, the one in which the team finally became relevant — even to some Americans — and has had its most success ever? That started with DeMar DeRozan. DeRozan was the single most popular player, the one most closely tied to the franchise. The 19-year-old kid who was drafted in 2009 grew into a 28-year-old man in the near-decade he spent in this city. And just before his 29th birthday, he was gone.
When the news broke that DeRozan was being traded to the San Antonio Spurs, I was only half-awake and barely understood what I was reading. It was around 4:30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning on the East Coast, and I started work at 5 a.m. that day. I had no one to talk to about the trade or digest the news with right away, and I’m still not quite sure how I managed that.
But once I went on my short break and finally had time to process the trade news, I was pretty happy. Kawhi Leonard was already one of my favourite NBA players and now he’d be playing for my favourite NBA team. Danny Green provided the two skills where DeRozan fell short: 3-point shooting and defense. The Raptors hadn’t given up Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, or any of their other best assets. The trade was an unequivocal win, and it even prevented the Raptors from having to make the difficult decision about whether to give DeRozan another big contract in 2021, when he’ll be 31 years old.
And yet…the trade still left most of us with mixed feelings. DeRozan was obviously hurt over it, which he went on to say publicly in the ensuing weeks. The city meant a lot to him. It’s the place where he essentially grew up, going from a college freshman to a real adult. For DeRozan, Toronto is like the apartment where the characters of Friends made all their memories. Every step of DeRozan’s career success came in Toronto. His two daughters were born during his time with the team. His friendship with Kyle Lowry, which Lowry said “is bigger than basketball,” developed during their time together in Toronto. He attended some Blue Jays games with Lowry, and he often wore OVO clothes — the brand of the Raptors’ global ambassador, sometimes known as Drake.
But DeRozan meant just as much to the city as the city meant to him.
Let me tell you about the memory of mine from DeRozan’s time in Toronto which I believe will last the longest.
It wasn’t his monstrous dunk in the final seconds to take the lead over the Detroit Pistons last March on U.S. national TV. It wasn’t him scoring a franchise record 52 points against the Milwaukee Bucks on New Year’s Day 2018. It wasn’t his first All-Star selection, or his dunk over Timofey Mozgov, or his dunk over Rudy Gobert, or even his dunk over Giannis Antetokounmpo to cap off a playoff series. (In case you haven’t noticed, DeRozan had a lot of great dunks.)
It was in August 2010, when my brother and I attended then-Raptors swingman Sonny Weems’ basketball camp. The camp was mostly unremarkable, with Weems making a few appearances here and there. But one thing stood out: On the very last day, DeMar DeRozan showed up.
DeRozan wasn’t very famous then. He’d turned 21 just a couple weeks before the camp started — hardly older than I am now. He was best known for being a high draft pick, or maybe for participating in the 2010 NBA Dunk Contest. But he didn’t have to show up at the camp. My brother played him one-on-one for a couple possessions, and at the time, we had no idea the kind of star DeRozan would become. But DeRozan had a certain charisma and character to him that felt more authentic than Weems or any of the other few NBA players I’d met before. His appearance at the camp was a special moment, one that I’m sure none of the kids in that gym have forgotten.
DeRozan’s career in Toronto was full of those moments. Just weeks before their appearances at the camp, DeRozan and Weems showed up at a local gym to play in pickup games and have a dunk-off. Years later, DeRozan not only visited SickKids hospital but wore a Santa costume to deliver presents to the kids there. Last year, he opened up about his battle with depression and made others feel more comfortable speaking about their own mental health struggles. He won the PBWA Magic Johnson Award last season for his treatment of the media, and most Raptors beat writers would agree that DeRozan was a joy to cover and to be around. Lowry, of course, has said that DeRozan will always be his best friend. Raptors coach Nick Nurse said on Thursday that DeRozan is “the best dude ever.”
I don’t know DeRozan personally and I don’t know every detail of his life. But his public actions and words, and the way he’s spoken so genuinely about his personal struggles, paint a pretty clear picture of the person he became while in Toronto, and the person he continues to be. He wouldn’t be able to make the same impact on the city without the team records he broke, the highlight dunks, and his transformation into the face of the franchise. But the impact that he ended up making — it went far beyond those things.
When DeRozan returns to Toronto on Friday in a Spurs uniform for the first time, he’ll receive a standing ovation and some of the loudest cheers that a Raptors crowd has ever given out. It will be emotional. Trades aren’t emotional, business isn’t emotional, and there’s no true loyalty in the business of sports. But sports don’t exist on a plane of their own. Athletes aren’t just video game characters who add a win or a loss to their team’s record every night; they’re regular people, with regular emotions and relationships, and their actions affect the people around them. DeMar DeRozan made an impact on Toronto that goes far beyond sports, and for that, the city will remember and celebrate him for a long time. Friday is only the beginning.
