LAS VEGAS — It’s not uncommon for visitors to Sin City to lose track of time and the ability to separate one day from the next.

Count DeMar DeRozan among them, although for very different reasons than typical.

The former Raptor and barely minted San Antonio Spur has seen time melt in the 10 days since he received the call from Raptors president Masai Ujiri telling him he was being traded from the only NBA team he’d ever known.

In Las Vegas for a two-day Team USA minicamp DeRozan was making his first official public appearance since the trade that has shaken the Raptors franchise to the core went down.

The first week, he says, was a blur. The next stage was kicked off with his no-holds barred interview on ESPN on Tuesday night in Las Angeles. He’s just not sure when exactly that was:

“I don’t even know what day today is,” DeRozan said following a brisk two-hour workout with 20 or so of the NBA’s “who’s who” vying for a spot on Team USA for the FIBA World Cup of Basketball in China next summer.

“After Tuesday, I just moved on. It’s the second chapter of my basketball career, my life, everything. I just moved on, accept everything that comes forth,” he said. “You know how I am when it comes to working and my approach to the game of basketball. This is just a new page for me to be able to make a step.”

Part of that step has been a severing of ties with Ujiri, who shared a close working relationship with DeRozan over the past five seasons. DeRozan called Ujiri’s decision to trade him because he [Ujiri] believed that the Raptors had reached their ceiling with him “some B.S.” in his interview on Tuesday and it was later reported that DeRozan was withdrawing from his trip to Africa for Ujiri’s Giants of Africa Foundation and the NBA Africa Game.

There are no plans to air things out or smooth things over.

Has he spoken with Ujiri since the trade, DeRozan was asked?

“No.”

Do you plan to?

“No.”

Is that relationship over?

“Done,” he said. “No reason to have a relationship. It’s done. It’s just done for me, from my end.”

A few days around his NBA peers has helped him look forward and gives him a chance to share the floor for the first time with Team USA head coach and Spurs boss Gregg Popovich. The two spent a fair bit of time together during and after the practice on Thursday on the campus of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, talking one-on-one.

Popovich wouldn’t entertain any specific DeRozan questions – “that was a good try though,” when I asked him about his newest all-star – but allowed that building strong personal relationships is part of his coaching process.

“All these guys have a different story, right? Just like all of you,” Popovich said. “We all have families or kids or situations in life. It’s fun to find out who they really are over and above basketball players. It helps me coach them. It makes them feel a bigger part of the program. And they know we’re genuinely interested in them off the court.”

As trade begins to fade into the background, DeRozan was entertaining some of the benefits of joining one of the most respected franchises in all of sports, one with five NBA championships and an unprecedented 21-season playoff streak that DeRozan will be counted on to help extend in the hotly contested Western Conference.

Texas, it was pointed out to him, has no state income tax, which mean millions more of the $83-million left on his contract will stay in his pocket. His days of dealing with a Toronto winter are behind him too. In LaMarcus Aldridge he’s teaming up with the best power forward he’s played with since running with Chris Bosh in his rookie year in Toronto, DeRozan said.

But what he’s looking forward to most is playing for Popovich.

“His resume speaks for himself. If you’re a basketball fan and you know the game, Pop is one of those guys you have to be a fan of, inside and out. That’s where I’ve been out before I got in the league and even in the league, being a fan of his coaching. Now being a part of it, it’s something to look forward to.

“He always showed me mutual respect that I definitely appreciated,” he said. “There have been times he’s told me things on the sidelines about my game. He was a fan, keep working. Just to see things come full circle for me to be in this position, it’s definitely cool.”

The trade has in a strange way shown DeRozan the kind of esteem he’s held in around the NBA. The texts of support have come steadily. He even got one from retired hall-of-famer Ray Allen, whom DeRozan only knew from playing against early in his career.

But it’s hard for him not to look back, even as he’s trying to move ahead. He’s enjoyed hanging around former teammate Kyle Lowry again and gave an inkling of what could be ahead when DeRozan picked off a cross-court pass from Lowry during one of the live portions of the nearly two-hour practice.

“I think he just got scared when he saw me and turned it over,” DeRozan said. “But it’s going to be fun. He’s one of my favourite players, one of my favourite point guards I ever played against so just being able to play against him during the season is going to be fun.”

But DeRozan doesn’t sound like he’ll be completely over his Raptors experience any time soon. He’s eagerly waiting for the NBA schedule to come out so he can circle his first game back at Scotiabank Arena, formerly the Air Canada Centre.

And if his relationship with Ujiri is over, his connection with basketball fans in Canada seems unbreakable and one that will endure the test of time:

“I don’t know any other way I can thank the fans of Toronto, not even Toronto, just Canada, period,” he said. “There is no words I could come up with to express my appreciation. You really don’t realize something until it’s really taken away. And I really realized that – I always said when I was there they were some great fans, but they are some great f-ing fans. Period. Seriously.”