By Sunay Sanghani, Class of 2024
DeMar DeRozan, shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls, will be playing in his fifth All-Star game in the 2021-22 All Star Game in Cleveland. In year 13, it seems like DeRozan is clicking on all cylinders like never before. I want to examine whether DeRozan’s shot selection this season can give some context behind his resurgence.
The most unique aspect of DeRozan’s game is his mid range shooting. In a three-point shooting league, DeRozan thrives off of attempting more mid range shots and attacking the basket. Rightfully so: he currently shoots 54.4% from 10-16 feet range, which is well above the league average. Putting him around floor spacers such as Zach Lavine, Lonzo Ball, and Nikola Vucevic allows DeRozan to dominate the middle of the floor and posession.
Using spatial data and his shot location data available from NBA.com, I created a shot chart visualization to examine the reason behind his success. I extracted the data from the NBA API and created a scatter plot to chart the shot data. Essentially, I created a data frame for every player in the NBA and created a variable for DeMar DeRozan’s season.
Here’s a snapshot of the base set-up in Python.
Through 48 games in the 2021-2022 season, DeRozan’s shot chart looks like this:
DeRozan is averaging 28.1 PPG on 51.7% shooting percentage in the current 2021-22 campaign.
As expected, DeRozan shoots most of his shots from the midrange and around the paint. Additionally, a majority of his shots are from the (-100,100) coordinates which is quite different from years past. His shots are not as spread out over the court as years past. Any scorer of DeRozan’s ability would typically have shots spread around the entire floor. In particular, one of the most common areas to shoot is around the extended elbow beyond the arc(coordinates 100,200 on the Y-Axis). DeRozan, however, only has a handful in that area. His shots are from the center. Past years confirm that not attempting those extended elbow shots is actually a good thing for DeRozan’s sake.
For reference, I also created shot charts for the 2020-2021 season and 2019-2020 season. DeRozan was not an All-Star in either of those seasons, but was still considered one of the best players in the league. 2020-21 was considered an off year for DeRozan as his limitations from deep were blatant in the San Antonio Spurs motion offense. He shot 22.7% from deep in his Spurs tenure. Here is the 2020-21 shot chart:
DeRozan averaged 21.6 PPG on 49.5% shooting percentage in 2020-21.
One of the most noticeable differences between the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons is the shots around the right elbow area. DeRozan attempted fewer shots from the right side last season than he has this season. The right side has been DeRozan’s strong suit this year: he’s shooting an above-average 46% from the right half of the court. Visually, it can be seen that there is a lot more green from the (0, 200) coordinates(right half) than the (0,-200) coordinates(left half) in the 2021–22 shot chart. He is right-handed and most right-handed players prefer shooting from their dominant side.
Additionally, in both 2019-2020(below) and 2020-2021, he attempted shots from all over beyond-the-arc. His attempts were not as successful and he was pretty limited from there.
DeRozan averaged 22.1 PPG on 53.7% shooting percentage in 2019-20.
Compared to 2020 and 2021, DeRozan did not attempt as many threes in 2019. He averaged a career low of 0.5 three point attempts per game in 2019-20. In 2021-22, his 3 Point Attempt Average is back up at 1.9 per game. DeRozan’s shot chart for this season suggests he is more surgical in his three-point attempts. He is taking a lot more corner three-point shots(either by design or not), which is a shorter distance at 25 feet compared to the elbow areas. Such a shooting choice could be a big indication for his efficiency: he is not wasting shots on deep attempts.
However, make no mistake about it, DeRozan is also simply shooting the ball better than expected. He is currently shooting 50.1% from the field and averaging 19 shots per game. His three point percentage is at 33.7% which is a career best. For reference, DeRozan is a career 46.3% shooter and usually takes about 15 shots per game. Some credit should go to the Chicago Bulls organization and head coach Billy Donovan to allow DeRozan to attempt more shots and put him in a position to score from his comfort spots.
In year 13, it’s pretty obvious that DeRozan has taken the highs and the lows from his last two seasons in San Antonio to refine his game this year. He’s taking shots from the areas that he usually thrives in: right half of the court and mid range. He has not adapted his game to abide by the common three-point trope in the NBA. He simply does not need to. DeRozan has continued to play his game and it’s working with the Chicago Bulls. As the season progresses, it will be interesting to track whether DeMar DeRozan will be able to use his current shooting model to lead the Bulls to a deep playoff run.