As evidenced by his reaction to being traded from the Toronto Raptors, it would seem loyalty means quite a fair bit to DeMar DeRozan.
That’s why, if his new San Antonio Spurs teammate Rudy Gay is to be believed, the Raptors’ franchise scoring leader should be excited about going to his new team.
“The best part about San Antonio, they do right by you,” Gay told the Hartford Courant. “They do right by their players, do right by their staff. That doesn’t happen much in the NBA, to be honest with you. It doesn’t happen much.”
Adding to this point, Gay, a former Raptor himself for all of 51 games, makes a direct comparison between the kind of honesty he’s seen from the Spurs’ organization and how Masai Ujiri and the Raptors run things.
“On one side, there was [Kawhi Leonard] that was trying to get out, get to a bigger market, and [the Spurs] were totally being up front with him, and then they trade him for a guy [DeRozan] where that organization wasn’t being up front with him at all. So, I mean, it’s just night and day. That trade right there shows you the difference between the San Antonio Spurs and other organizations.”
And having been traded from the Raptors before, Gay understands a little of the hurt DeRozan feels.
“It’s tough to go on and just uproot to another city,” said Gay. “For DeMar, it’s another country, so I kind of feel for him. I’ve been in that situation. It’s not easy.”
DeRozan and Gay were teammates in Toronto for nearly 11 months in 2013. Despite the pedigree of the two, they didn’t make for a very effective duo, only combining for plus-17 in 1,429 minutes of floor time together.
Still, the two seem pretty excited to be reunited as teammates, even playing together in the Drew League earlier this summer.
DeRozan was traded to the Spurs, along with Jakob Poeltl and a protected first-round pick, for Leonard, a two-time defensive player of the year, and Danny Green on July 18.
[relatedlinks]
