DeMar DeRozan cannot be stopped. The Toronto Raptors guard scored 33 points in a 118-107 victory over the New York Knicks on Saturday, the eighth time in nine games that he had scored 30-plus points. No one has started a season like this since Michael Jordan in 1986-87, per the Elias Sports Bureau, and the only other players to do it are Wilt Chamberlain (three times), Jack Twyman, Elgin Baylor, Nate Archibald and World B. Free.
DeRozan's scorching start was notable more than a week ago. Now it's downright ridiculous. Here he is crushing the Knicks:
Clearly, DeRozan's confidence has never been higher. What's fascinating, though, is that he isn't doing much differently than before. Over the past few years, he has steadily gotten stronger, improved his ball-handling and developed into one of the best pick-and-roll players in the league. Now, with a little more balance on his jump shot, patience and experience going up against elite defenses in the playoffs, the results have been a lot better.
DeRozan was already an All-Star player and an Olympic gold medalist. Now he's playing like a true NBA superstar, with a usage rate of 37.5 percent, up from his career-high 29.8 percent last season. And with a shot chart like this, why wouldn't you put the ball in his hands as often as possible?
Nine games into the season, DeRozan has a true shooting percentage of 59.4 percent despite shooting just 3 for 14 from 3-point range. That's not generally supposed to happen for a wing player, but it's not that different from Dwyane Wade's best years with the Miami Heat. Even prime Wade, though, never had a usage rate as high as DeRozan's or a turnover rate as low as DeRozan's -- while leading the league in scoring at 34 points per game, DeRozan has an 8.2 percent turnover rate.
It's a bit of a cliché when athletes say that the game has slowed down for them, but it's hard to describe DeRozan's ascendance another way. Every night, he is calmly sizing defenders up, getting to his spots and easily nailing shots that would be difficult for anybody else.
So far this season, the league has had no answer for DeRozan. The schedule-makers, though, have presented him and the 7-2 Raptors with a tough test this coming week. They have a brutal back-to-back on Tuesday in Cleveland and at home Wednesday against the Golden State Warriors. If Toronto is to have a chance, it will need him to keep this up.
