If you ever wanted to start a fight, just tweet literally anything about DeMar DeRozan. Anything. Both sides will come flocking, armed to the teeth, ready to blow up your mentions faster than DeRozan can launch a midrange J.

Seven years in, for all that DeRozan has grown and accomplished, he remains as divisive as ever. It’s not who he is as a player that’s so contentious — it’s that many see DeRozan as a philosophical faultline on how basketball should be played.

Is he actually good? And if so, how good is DeRozan, really?

Reaching a middle ground, for most, is difficult to reconcile after years of arguing. Both sides are fairly entrenched, and while I count myself among the immovable (I’m far from a DeRozan stan, as evidenced by this), it would be a boldface lie told by both sides, a case of willful ignorance, if they didn’t acknowledge that DeRozan is a good, very imperfect player.

Let’s just keep facts in mind when it comes discussing DeRozan’s game.

Reasons why DeRozan is good

Volume scoring

The object of basketball is to put the orange ball through a hoop. Do that more than your opponent and you win. DeRozan is really good at putting the ball through the hoop a lot.

DeRozan scored the eighth-most points in the league with 1,830 last season. On a nightly basis, DeRozan was fractions behind Russell Westbrook at 23.5 points per game — good for ninth in the league. The other eight players ahead of him are perennial All-NBA players.

Scoring in great volume doesn’t necessarily make one a great scorer (more below) but DeRozan actually managed to nudge his true-shooting percentage above league average last year. His mark of 55.0 is right there with Westbrook (55.4), Paul George (55.7) Anthony Davis (55.9), Damian Lillard (56.0), and DeMarcus Cousins (53.8).

DeRozan is a volume scorer who flirts with league-average efficiency. There’s a lot of value in that — especially considering the Raptors have been a top-five offense over the last three seasons with DeRozan as their №1 option.

Even if you think the Raptors have succeeded in spite of DeRozan, the fact is that the offense has been tremendous with DeRozan as its focal point. That part is inarguable.

Hard to guard

Scoring in great volume is indicative of DeRozan’s ever-growing arsenal of moves.

DeRozan can score in the post — he routinely punishes smaller defenders by backing them into the block. He uses a bevy of drop steps, pump fakes, and the threat of his fadeaway jumper to leverage his strength advantage into a living nightmare for tiny defenders.

DeRozan can score in the pick-and-roll — he’s crafty, he can score from the midrange, and most importantly, DeRozan is a constant threat to explode to the basket (more below). He ranked third in the league in points per pick-and-roll, ahead of the likes of James Harden, Chris Paul, and Kevin Durant.

DeRozan can score off pin-downs — it’s not his best weapon, but when defenders overplay and try to deny him the ball, DeRozan can work around screens to get his shot. He’s not particularly efficient since he mostly avoids the 3-point line, but it’s an option for the offense nonetheless.

Attacking the basket

Putting aside all the craft and guile, DeRozan’s greatest weapon is the ability to put his head down and drive. When he attacks the basket with a running start, there are very few players in the league who can stop him.

You have to be one bad motherfucker to drop this on the Stifle Tower (late in the fourth quarter on the road in Utah, no less).

DeRozan ranked third in drives per game last season, and he scored on 74.4 percent of his forays to the basket. That’s a higher percentage than Westbrook, higher than LeBron James. DeRozan shot 50.6 percent on his drives and drew fouls on 18.5 percent of his possessions.

DeRozan led the league by a mile in points off drives per game. That’s freaking incredible.

Next to James Harden, DeRozan shot the second-most free throws in the league last season. And look, it’s commonplace to cherish today’s league as a layups and threes league, but when a 85 percent free-throw shooter toes the line for two freebies, that’s pretty damn efficient.

Capable secondary facilitator

DeRozan was never much of a ball-handler when he first entered the league, nor did he have much vision. He’s steadily grown into an above-average playmaking shooting guard.

Does he occasionally get tunnel vision? Every volume scorer does. But DeRozan was able to average four assists per game last year in an offense that simply doesn’t produce many assists. DeRozan can run the offense in a pinch, making him one of just a few shooting guards who can do so reliably.

Intangibles

Health

DeRozan has just one minor injury in his career — that being a groin tear suffered in 2014 when he slipped on a wet spot. That kept knocked him out for six weeks.

Aside from that, DeRozan has only missed only 15 games in seven season, and most of that is owing to rest or precaution.

That’s a freakish track record for someone who routinely logs league-topping minutes. That’s borderline LeBron-esque in how he’s able to remain durable despite heavy use.

Leadership

Ask anyone in the Raptors organization and they’ll tell you — DeMar DeRozan is one of the hardest workers in the NBA.

Remember that story a while back when DeRozan spent New Year’s Eve watching film? That’s DeRozan in a nutshell. That’s how a raw-skills player developed from being just an athlete, to becoming an all-around offensive threat.

Being led by a hard-working star player forces the rest of the roster to fall in line. Harden’s Rockets and Cousins’ Kings are the latest examples of the toxic atmosphere that could be borne out of stars who can’t lead by example — the Raptors have never had any issues during DeRozan’s tenure.

Or how’s this: Every Raptors fan’s favorite pet project is Norman Powell, the second-round rookie who rocked the world with a promising two-month stretch to end the season. Who did he cite as one of his favorite players in college, and who did he learn from last year? DeRozan.

Stature

As with any business, you are your reputation. And while the sentiment isn’t always shared by fans, insiders consider DeRozan a star player.

He’s twice gotten the call for his country. He helped the United States win the FIBA World Cup in 2014, then returned for an encore this summer at Rio 2016. Granted, DeRozan played a limited role and his participation was contingent on several top players dropping out, but still, the fact that he was even called to represent the best basketball nation in the world is an honor.

DeRozan has also made two All-Star games, and might have made a third if he didn’t miss time due to the groin injury. He even got a bit of love for the All-NBA team this season (he would have made it as a fourth-team guard.)

And look, whether it’s fully deserved or not, what matters is that DeRozan is held in high esteem. That can’t be a bad thing — especially in a league shaped by star recruitment. Having a name that rings out matters. His name is his name.

Reasons why DeRozan isn’t *that good*

One-dimensional scoring

DeRozan is a player straight out of the nineties. He’s a good isolation player who can handle a huge scoring load for an offense. But his game doesn’t quite fit symmetrically into the modern era.

Today’s game places a greater emphasis on players who are triple threats — those who can shoot, pass, or dribble past and make a play. DeRozan only checks off 1.5 boxes (he’s an average passer).

For most players, 1.5 skills would be decent, especially since DeRozan is fantastic at the one (dribble past and make a play.) But it’s hard to justify having the feature player of the offense being that limited without the ball.

Floor spacing

Aside from the occasional cut, DeRozan isn’t particularly effective when he’s off the ball because he’s not a particularly effective spot-up shooter from distance.

This is one instance where the stats are misleading, because DeRozan shot 42.2 percent on catch-and-shoot threes last season. But what’s more telling is that he only attempted 1.2 per game — a tiny fraction of his 17.6 field-goal attempts on any given night — because that highlights how limited his shot is.

Here’s his heat map from 2015–16. Notice how DeRozan pretty much only shoots threes from the corners, and even then, he takes very few attempts.

Granted, it’s hard for a main option like DeRozan to consistently stumble into spot-up opportunities. Most catch-and-shoot jumpers come out of a main initiator drawing help, followed by a kick-out pass. DeRozan can’t exactly dish it to himself after collapsing the defense with a drive.

But since he’s not a threat to shoot from beyond, defenders are willing to leave DeRozan to help when he doesn’t have the ball, and that muddles the offense for everyone else.

The below is an extreme example of how defenses cover DeRozan when he plays off the ball.

Over-reliance on midrange

The whole point about avoiding midrange shots isn’t about the midrange itself, it’s about efficiency. If someone can hit 50 percent of their looks, that’s a good shot.

DeRozan is a good midrange shooter in the sense that he can hit a variety of midrange looks, he can hit contested shots, he can make them out of the post, he can stop on a dime at the elbow, he can come off a pin-down and pop a jumper. Having the flexibility to hit these is good.

But what’s inescapable, and inexplicable, is how many midrange shots that DeRozan launches without being particularly efficient.

DeRozan has hit less than 40 percent of his looks from 16-feet out to the 3-point line in each of his last three seasons. He barely approaches 40 percent from between 10 and 16 feet. And yet that’s where more than half of his league-leading 2-point field goal originate from.

Only two players took more midrange shots than DeRozan: Carmelo Anthony and Dirk Nowitzki. Both of those players hit 44 percent from the midrange — DeRozan made 38 percent. It’s a good shot for Melo and Dirk; it’s a bad one for DeRozan.

That’s why his efficiency metrics come out to average. All the midrange chucks negate his hyper-efficient drives to the basket. And yes, he needs the jumper to open up the drive, but anyone who’s watched DeRozan realizes that he settles far too often for a jumper that isn’t all that accurate.

Neutralized threat in playoffs

If we’re being completely honest about DeRozan’s offense, it’s not entirely impossible to stop him from being effective, especially when you have time to draft up a scheme.

When a team can gameplan for him, and has (a) a long wing defender, and (b) a capable rim protector, DeRozan is not effective as the №1 option. He was made ineffective in the Brooklyn Nets series three years ago, Otto Porter and Marcin Gortat completely enveloped DeRozan in 2015, and again, Ian Mahinmi and Paul George shut down DeRozan in 2016.

It’s a huge blight on DeRozan’s resume that his playoff performances have been so awful. His playoff true-shooting percentage is 48.2. His offensive rating is 99. You can’t chalk that up entirely to small sample size theatre either — there’s a tangible difference in the setting of a playoff game as compared to any run-of-the-mill regular season matchup.

What happens is this: DeRozan is only an effective scorer when he gets to the basket, or when he gets to the free-throw line. So if there’s someone waiting to challenge him at the hoop, while a long-armed wing chases DeRozan around without fouling him, he’s left with only the midrange jumper.

And at that point, DeRozan can’t consistently be effective with the ball, and he’s not a threat without the ball either. It’s happened time and time again.

Defensive liability

It would be too much to call DeRozan a sieve. For the most part, he knows where he’s supposed to go, and he’s generally willing to defend. But it just does not translate to results.

The on-off metrics for his defense tells the tale: the Raptors were 5.6 points worse per 100 possessions with DeRozan on the court. And that generally comes with DeRozan getting the easiest assignments.

Going off his physical profile, DeRozan doesn’t quite have the natural tools to defend. He’s laterally slow, he’s not strong, and his wingspan is rather average (6-foot-9). He’s an explosive leaper, sure, but that’s not going to help much on defense.

Of course, plenty of players manage to pass as average on defense without having elite athleticism. The difference there is the willingness to compete. While DeRozan isn’t negligent like Harden, he’s certainly not balls-to-the-wall defender like Kyle Lowry that allows him to overcome shortcomings.

That, along with an extremely burdensome offensive load, renders DeRozan a weak defender.

DeRozan isn’t Lowry

This is something that bothered me from how the Raptors were covered during the playoffs.

While it’s true that both Lowry and DeRozan both struggled with their shooting percentages, that doesn’t mean that both players struggled equally.

To wit: The Raptors were 7.2 points per 100 possessions worse with DeRozan on the court during the playoffs. They were 26.9 points per 100 possessions better with Lowry on.

The massive gap in their on-off splits speaks to the dimensionality of each player. Lowry is a multi-faceted contributor that factors in as a positive in every aspect of the game. DeRozan mostly relies on scoring to be effective. So when both players can’t score, there’s still something there for Lowry, whereas DeRozan becomes a liability.

However, while this difference is a critique of DeRozan’s game, the critique should not be made with Lowry as the standard. That’s neither fair nor relevant. Not only does Lowry play a different role for the Raptors, he produced like a top-10 (or even top-7) during the regular season.

Nobody is arguing that DeRozan is anywhere near the top-10, so holding him to that standard is both unfair and unproductive.

Why we should stop arguing about DeRozan in general

He’s not changing who he is

As fans, or even as those who appreciate basketball, we might want DeRozan to add things to his game, or augment his style. But having gotten this far by being who he is, DeRozan isn’t changing.

That’s not to say DeRozan is perfect, nor is it to say that he’s unwilling to improve. As mentioned previously, DeRozan is one of the hardest workers in the league. He spends every offseason training to get better — shit, he even works on his game while shopping at Wal-Mart.

But what DeRozan has worked on is improving himself within his game. What I mean by that is DeRozan hasn’t worked to change as a player — he’s become a better version of what he was. He’s tightened up the midrange jumper, added more pivot moves and shot-fakes, tightened up his handle, but that’s been his game since his sophomore year. At no point did he fundamentally change — especially not seven years in after earning a maximum contract, a gold medal, and two all-star appearances.

While it would be nice for DeRozan to become a better passer, or a better defender, or a better 3-point shooter, it just feels silly to expect him to do so. He is what he is, and will continue getting better at what he does.

2. You’re not even arguing about DeRozan the player

Another reason why the DeRozan argument is silly: it’s not really about DeRozan.

As stated off the top, DeRozan represents a philosophical faultline in how NBA basketball should be played. In an era of spread pick-and-roll with 3-and-D shooters aplenty, DeRozan’s Jerry Stackhouse impersonation sticks out like a sore thumb. His game is far more reminiscent of the 90s, when isolation basketball reigned supreme.

Whether you’re high on DeRozan, or down on DeRozan, largely depends on what school of basketball thought that you belong to. He does what he does — it’s a matter of how much importance you place on each of his strengths and his weaknesses.

It’s not really about DeRozan.

3. Nothing has changed

This is the one that really gets me. DeRozan has been this way for most of his career, so why is the discussion still going? Seven years wasn’t enough to reach a verdict? This isn’t the O.J. trial, man, it’s not that serious. Keep it moving.

4. WHAT ABOUT DEROZAN?

DeRozan inspired one of the greatest moments in Raptors history, so let’s just appreciate this once again from my boy Courtney Fraser.