Nine games into the 2016-17 season, Toronto Raptors shooting guard DeMar DeRozan is still uncontainable and worth every penny of his nine-figure contract.
When the New York Knicks came up to Toronto Saturday night, they brought one of the NBA’s worst defenses with them. DeRozan had scored 30-plus in seven of his eight games prior to the one against the Knicks, and he was knocking down a staggering 53 percent of his shots.
DeRozan would finish with 33, and he became the first player since Michael Jordan in 1988-89 to score at least 300 points through his team’s first nine games.
Rick Barry, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tiny Archibald, and World B. Free, are also on that list.
@DeMar_DeRozan. reaches 300 total points in first nine games of a season - only six players in the last 50 years have accomplished this..
— RaptorsMR (@RaptorsMR) November 13, 2016
The two-time All-Star had a lackluster first half shooting the ball, buried just five of his 13 shot attempts and collected 13 points. Toronto entered halftime trailing New York 56-53. DeRozan was a brand new player coming out of the break, and he equaled his first half scoring total in the third quarter on 4-of-6 shooting.
His final seven came in the fourth quarter, and the Raptors escaped with the 118-107 victory.
The Compton native is still the NBA’s leading scorer at 34 points a night, and his shooting clip is nearly 53 percent despite dreadful shooting from long-range (21.4 percent).
While everyone is looking to launch 28-foot threes, DeRozan is doing just fine inside of the arc and is, undoubtedly, the NBA’s most efficient mid-range player:
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