When a group of online friends and rabid Toronto Raptors fans decided to put together a book to show DeMar DeRozan how deep support for him runs, after he disclosed a personal battle with moments of depression, they had no idea how the idea would take off.

As Syed Hasny stood with a group of seven others at the Air Canada Centre on Sunday — presenting DeRozan with a tome that will stretch out to more than 260 pages, plus a $3,500 donation to Lupus Canada — the sense of pride was palpable.

“We didn’t ever think it would be this big,” said Hasny, who along with fellow Raptors fans Judith Wang and Aleks Sanjevic spearheaded the program. “That it’s a very global thing is even more impressive.”

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Read more: Raptors’ DeRozan hopes honest talk on depression helps others

The submissions run from long letters to short handwritten notes, pictures and personal messages of support for DeRozan, the 29-year-old native of Compton, Calif., now in his ninth season with the Raptors.

“You taking out the time, and thinking of me (and) doing something like this means everything,” DeRozan said. ”It’s definitely awesome. Thank you. That’s dope.”

And while the young men and women who met him before Sunday’s final regular-season home game against the Orlando Magic said they were nervous and a bit awestruck, DeRozan was stunned by the scope of the project.

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“I really, really appreciate it,” he said. “It means a lot to me, and I’m pretty sure it means a lot to a lot more people as well. If it was one page, I’d be happy. I’m going to … sit at my locker before the game and read it.”

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In a Star story published in mid-February, DeRozan spoke out about his battle with depression — “times everything in the whole world’s on top of you” — and it created ripples throughout the professional sports world. Other NBA players came forward with their own stories, each crediting DeRozan with giving them the impetus to talk openly.

“I wasn’t expecting anything. I was just going off how I felt,” DeRozan said. “I wasn’t thinking anything else or the response from it. It’s probably one of the most important things I’ve done in my career. It’s awesome.”

The three Toronto-area students took it upon themselves to raise money for Lupus Canada — DeRozan’s mom and an aunt suffer from the disease — as a tribute to the four-time all-star. They received submissions from around the world — Afghanistan, Taiwan, the Philippines, across Europe and Africa — and put together the final book.

“We thought there’d be maybe 100 people or so in our online community, but the response was incredible from around the world,” Wang said.