The yearly tradition of offseason player rankings continued this summer. One of the most notable was created by Sports Illustrated. As expected, many people were angry at the results because Player X is clearly much better than Player Y.
While fans’ anger is to be expected at this point, it’s not often that players express some resentment. But oh boy, did DeMar DeRozan just do that.
The Toronto Raptors shooting guard was ranked 46th by SI and he was not happy. So he decided to let everyone know through TSN’s Josh Lewenberg:
“Whoever came up with that is stupid in my opinion. I guarantee you a lot of the players that are ranked ahead of me know that they’re no better than me.
“And that’s not just me being arrogant or nothing like that, it’s just proven. I mean, line me up with any one of the guys that you’ve proclaimed that’s ahead of me, or whatever, I’m going to win the battle or whatever I gotta do with my teammates.”
DeRozan has improved a lot in recent years and become an all-star. He has helped lead a team to the Eastern Conference Finals despite his less-than-good playoffs performance. He’s clearly a good player.
That said, he still has a ton of flaws to his game. Additionally, the aesthetics of his game don’t endear him to anyone. 46th is probably too low of a ranking for DeMar DeRozan, but it’s also not as egregiously bad as he may claim. Then again, I can’t blame him.
