6. DeMar DeRozan, guard, Toronto Raptors
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y0xe4urIqSU
Underrated. Unheralded. Playing in Canada. Surely, DeRozan won’t win the MVP award this season. He’s going up against bigger names in larger markets. He’s doing so within the confines of an NBA where star power and market size is apparently everything. Even then, there’s absolutely no reason we shouldn’t mention him among the game’s best.
This All-Star started out the season in dominating fashion, averaging 30-plus points for the first month of the regular slate. While that number has fallen off as the season has progressed, DeRozan is still one of the most-proficient scorers in the game.
He’s averaging 27.8 points and a solid 1.3 points per shot. For someone shooting at such a high volume, that’s a solid number. In fact, comparing that to other top scorers, it’s better than the aforementioned Russell Westbrook.
More than anything here, the most-important reason for DeRozan’s inclusion is the fact that he has Toronto firmly in the race for a top-two seed back east. As the star power on one of the best teams in the conference, he surely deserves a nod in this list.