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2024 Free Agents - DeMar DeRozan

Summary
In '17-'18, Derozan's last season in Toronto, he shot a career high 276 threes, which was still in the 7th percentile for his position, per Cleaning the Glass. After being traded to San Antonio and subsequently signing with the Bulls in 2021, he has essentially refused to take threes, being in the very bottom percentile of three point frequency for his position (although he had a slight uptick in '23-'24), while being in the very top percentile in midrange frequency. 

To his credit, Derozan is one of the top midrange shooters in the league, and a poor three point shooter, so it's not like it's just an obvious answer to just starting shooting more threes, despite the spacing benefit that it can provide. He was an All-Star in 2022 and 2023. He also gets to the free throw line and converts at a very good rate. His 59% true shooting over the last several seasons is very good, but not elite.

Derozan has also really evolved as a playmaker, even averaging nearly 7 assists his last season in San Antonio. While that has taken a slight dip in Chicago, he still makes high-level reads that he didn't earlier in his career. 

Defensively, Derozan has always been below-average. He doesn't get steals or blocks at a high rate, and overall just isn't a great individual or team defender. His teams have almost always been better, and in some cases significantly better, on defense with him off the court than with him on the court.

At this point his career, teams that will be interested in Derozan will be teams that lack shot creation. There are times, especially in the playoffs, when the offense bogs down and you just need someone to create an okay look in isolation late in the shot clock. Derozan can do that. The problem though is what does Derozan do in the plays where he isn't asked to create. Teams won't respect him spotting up, which could hurt his value on teams where he won't have the ball in his hands as much. He'll also be nearly 35 heading into free agency in 2024, so teams may not want to give him long-term offers.
 
Cap Considerations
Derozan will be an unrestricted free agent with a $42.9 million cap hold and full Bird Rights, meaning the Bulls will have no restrictions on re-signing him. Since the Bulls will most likely be operating over the cap, his cap hold is not really relevant.

Depending on how close the Bulls are to the luxury tax after free agency, if Derozan is brought back by the Bulls on a multi-year contract they could benefit from frontloading his contract, as it could give them additional flexibility in the future.

Since Derozan's starting salary will be above the $12.9 million Nontaxpayer Mid-Level Exception, only teams with cap space will be able to sign him. If Derozan and an above-the-cap team have mutual interest, a sign-and-trade could be worked out.

Potential Teams: Bulls, Lakers, Rockets, Nets, Hornets

Predicted Contract: 3-year, $100 million with the Bulls

Actual Contract: 3-year, $73.7 million (3rd year $10 million guaranteed) with the Kings

I thought the Bulls might continue to run with their current team and re-sign Derozan to a big contract, but they ended up signing-and-trading him to Sacramento. Derozan still got a solid contract, even if it wasn't as big as I initially thought.

Last updated: 7/10/2024

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