When it comes to the Sacramento Kings, there aren't a lot of reliable parts of the team. One of the few is DeMar DeRozan, one of the best mid-range shooters in the history of the NBA. Lately, that hasn't been true, making fans wonder what DeRozan's future with the Kings looks like.
DeRozan is one of those guys. You put the ball in his hands, and good, if not great, things happen. Sure, he's not going to pass a lot, pick up a ton of rebounds, or play game-changing defense. But none of that is why he's on the team. He's there to drop an insane number of mid-range buckets.
That's what makes it so noticeable when he's off his game. For the past few outings, DeRozan hasn't seemed like himself. He's taking fewer shots and sinking even less, showing decreases in both quantity and efficiency. And this decline has happened quite suddenly.
The rapid change in DeRozan's game
As a general rule, DeMar is about as reliable a shooter as you're going to find, even when the Kings aren't having the best season. In many ways, he acts as an anchor for the rest of the team, giving them someone stable to work off of. DeRozan's January numbers are a prime example of this.
He shot 7.1 out of 14.1 for a field goal percentage of 50.6%. Keeping in mind that his three-point shooting has never been great, his free-throw shooting is with his January average being 81.3%. DeRozan was averaging 19.9 points in January, which was in line with the rest of the season.
February hasn't been as kind. His field goal percentage has declined to 42.9% on 4.8 out of 11.2. While DeRozan's free-throw percentage has actually improved, his average points per game have not. His February average is 15.6 points per game, a drop of over four points from January.
What happened to DeRozan's stability?
The easy answer is minutes, specifically a decline in them. In January, DeRozan was averaging 32.9 minutes per game, but he is only getting 26.0 so far in February. Getting nearly seven fewer minutes will definitely impact the number of shots he's taking, which has dropped by an average of three.
At the same time, that doesn't explain the nearly 8.0% decline in efficiency. That doesn't seem like much, but that big a decline equates to fewer points coming from the shots he is taking. If you look for the easy answer, it's not hard to find in this situation, either.
DeMar DeRozan is currently in his 17th season and is playing for a team he knows is looking to move on from him, whether he's still on the team or not. It could simply be that he's just not interested in competing as hard for the Kings anymore, and a change in scenery could do him some good.