If there has been one point hammered home to Terrence Ross in his short NBA career, it is the importance of summer time self-improvement.

All he had to do was watch the transformation and growth of teammate DeMar DeRozan, whose summer has elevated his game to unexpected heights, to see the benefits.

So it made sense that Ross would spend most of this summer learning at the feet of the master.

“I worked out a lot with DeMar this summer, we had a lot of one-on-one workouts and a lot of workouts with James Harden, so it’s been a good summer for me,” Ross said after serving as the celebrity drawmaster for Sunday’s Ricoh Woodbine Mile horse race. “I learned a lot, especially from (DeRozan).”

DeRozan’s summer work, the willingness to put in the time away from the spotlight, dedicated only to improved skills, is the stuff of recent Raptor legend. DeRozan’s efforts not only made him an NBA all-star last season, they landed him on the United States World Cup team and cemented him as one of Toronto’s team leaders.

It did not slip Ross’s eye.

“It’s been a lot of work, a lot of adjusting my game, but it’s all been for the better,” said Ross, who spent a large chunk of the off-season in Los Angeles in individual workouts and at informal pickup games with other NBAers at the Los Angeles Clippers’ practice facility.

“If you want to be good, you have to be confident and you have to know that you’re here for a reason and you have to believe in yourself. That right there will just take you a long way.”

There will be a lot of attention paid to, and expectations placed on, Ross as he enters his third NBA season.

His rookie year, while not a washout, was more learning than anything, simply getting his feet wet in the NBA. His second season was going to be much the same until Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri pulled off a season-altering trade of Rudy Gay in early December. It took coach Dwane Casey just one post-game trade to anoint Ross the team’s new starting forward, with all the responsibility that came with it. Ross was, as to be expected, up and down. He had a 51-point game but didn’t average double-figures in scoring. His defensive play improved but he had stretches of passivity that led to all kinds of ups and downs.

None of it was the least bit surprising — Ross is but 23 years old and spent just two years playing at college — but if the Raptors are to build on last year’s surprising success, Ross will have to be a big reason why. They cannot afford a mercurial season from such a key position and veteran James Johnson is lurking on the roster ready to pounce on the job if Ross regresses.

“Decision-making here from college is a lot different, it takes a while but, at the same time, I feel like I’ve been through enough to understand what to do,” he said. “I’m going to hold myself accountable for better, higher play this year.”

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