This has been a great offseason for the Sacramento Kings, and the biggest reason why is that they were able to execute a sign-and-trade to land DeMar DeRozan.
By far and away, the biggest thing DeRozan brings to the table (outside of his veteran leadership) is his ability to get buckets. For the last decade and a half, DeRozan has demonstrated that he is one of the greatest scorers to ever grace our precious game. But just how high up the all-time scoring leaderboards will DeRozan end up before he decides to hang it up?
Where Does DeRozan Currently Rank?
Before we get into the business of predicting how many more points DeRozan has left to score, we should probably check where he sits on the list right now.
As of writing this, DeRozan is currently 36th in NBA history in points scored, with 23,582 career points. He is just ahead of Robert Parish (23,334 points) and right behind Stephen Curry (23,668).
How Many Points Will DeRozan Score?
Before we do any of this, keep in mind that there are five active players (Curry, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James) ahead of DeRozan on the all-time list. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that all of them except for Westbrook (since he seems to be nearing the end of his rope) stay ahead of him.
Anyway, a simple way to look at this would be to say that DeRozan is a career 21.2 PPG scorer who plays about 74 games per year. Let's say he keeps up that pace for two years. Then, for another two years, he gives an average of 10.5 PPG in 70 games per year (to account for the gradual decline of his game).
If that happened, DeRozan would end at 28,190 points, which would be good for 15th all-time (assuming Westbrook doesn't get to that mark before he retires).
For DeRozan to get to 30,000 points (and end his career as the 12th all-time leading scorer), he'd need to do a lot more work. For instance, if next season he has a season similar to his 2022-23 All-Star campaign (where he averaged 24.5 PPG) and plays 74 games, then he has the other four seasons we outlined (meaning DeRozan plays an even two decades in the NBA), he'll be right at that 30,000-point mark (30,003, to be exact).
Realistically, though, I think it is improbable that DeRozan surpasses the 30,000-point mark in his career. In all likelihood, he will finish somewhere in the 27,000 to 29,000-point range – putting him somewhere between 13th and 17th on the all-time list.
But then again, DeRozan has figured out to make a living off the midrange longer than anyone thought possible. So, maybe he'll prove us wrong again and climb even higher up the all-time list.