thelesterlee
The Chicago Bulls blew out the Los Angeles Lakers 121-103 on Monday night. You can downplay this win by saying that LeBron James didn’t play or that Anthony Davis was ejected or the Lakers are only a .500 team but yea cannot deny that previous DeRozan teams would’ve lost just knowing that LeBron was in the arena.
These Bulls improve to 10-4 on the season and are a half game away from the 1 seed in the East and their success is directly tied to the best free agent signing of the offseason.
DEMAR DEROZAN IS DEEP IN HIS BAG.
(Check out the bench)@NBCSChicago | @DeMar_DeRozan pic.twitter.com/sv1WiipJYj
— Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) November 16, 2021
Here’s how Derozan’s night against LA went:
- 35 minutes
- 38 points
- 15-for-23 shooting (65%)
- 2-for-5 from 3
- 6-for-6 free throw shooting
- 3 rebounds
- 6 assists
- 1 steal
- 1 block
- +17 plus-minus
DeMar DeRozan’s 26.9 points a night is 3rd in the NBA behind only Kevin Durant and Steph Curry. His name is in conversations with the best players in the NBA after an entire career of being the mid-range obsessed selfish scorer who doesn’t make anyone better around him as he focuses on getting his.
DeRozan’s game transformed a bit in San Antonio but it’s reached an even greater level in Chicago. He is a far superior play-maker and although he still maintains his fetish for the mid-range, he appears to have an all new bag of tricks opening up open shots that were frequently contested in previous years.
He is the head of a new Big 3 in Chicago that recorded their first win against the Lakers since 2016 thanks to DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Lonzo Ball combining to score and assist for a total of 110 points.
If the Bulls win the East, it’ll be impossible to not hand DeRozan the MVP trophy. DeMar leads the league in 4th quarter scoring (103 points). He’s 2nd in points scored as the ball handler in pick n rolls behind only Trae Young. He’s 3rd in points scored off drives to the rim behind only Ja Morant and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
But my favorite stat that really shows how valuable someone is the on-court/off-court scoring. Chicago is outscoring their opponents 10.4 points per 100 possessions when DeMar is on the floor and they are down 12.1 points per possessions when DeMar is on the bench. Prettyyyy valuable.
It’s wild that the Raptors traded him for Kawhi and everyone agreed that Kawhi was exponentially better than DeRozan and now DeMar joins Chicago, drags them to first place and looks like Kawhi did in a Raptors jersey. Insert some cliche about things coming full circle or some shit.
