The date was Feb. 1 2013, and the Toronto Raptors were playing the Los Angeles Clippers. With just under three minutes to play in the first quarter, a bit of Raptors history was made.
After receiving an outlet pass from Aaron Gray, DeMar DeRozan, from half-court, threw a lob up to new Toronto teammate Rudy Gay for his first field goal as a Raptor and the first time in their professional careers the two had hooked up on a play.
For the next 10 months the two proved to be a potently high scoring duo, but not the most successful, leading to Gay’s trade from the Raptors on Dec. 9, 2013.
Now, with the stunning Toronto deal with the San Antonio Spurs that sees the Raptors acquiring Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green in exchange for DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl, the Gay-DeRozan connection will get another kick at the can together and they already appear to be in fine form.
Playing for M.H.P. of the Drew League Sunday, the new Spurs teammates balled out and helped their team defeat the Pandas 94-79, feeding each other for triples and throwing down monster dunks along the way.
This should be a welcome sight for Spurs fans as Gay and DeRozan, despite their talent, were only plus-17 as a duo in the 1,429 minutes they played together in Toronto, but they were both much different, far less refined players back then than they are now.
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