PARIS --- DeMar DeRozan is returning from his three-game absence from a strained right quad for Thursday’s game against the Detroit Pistons at Accor Arena.
There are some veterans who wouldn’t mind over a week off at the midway point of the grind of another season.
DeRozan, 33, is in his 14th season. But that’s not the way he is wired.
“I never looked at it that way because I just hate missing games more than anything, man,” DeRozan said following Thursday’s morning shootaround. “My whole career has been based on being out there playing, no matter how I felt physically. Whether it was good, bad, whatever, I always prided myself to be out there on the floor. So for me, my patience of just not playing those games was tested at a very high level.”
It’s DeRozan’s 999th career NBA game and that’s been his modus operandi throughout his career. Show up. Play. Don’t take rest games.
In this day and age of load management, DeRozan cuts across the grain as much as his midrange game in the modern era of 3-point mania.
“I was a kid who always wanted to play every recess at school, every AAU game when you play five games in a day. I just always wanted to hoop,” DeRozan said. “That’s always been my mentality.”
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The thought process begs the obvious question: How much longer does DeRozan plan to play?
“As long as I love it and have that passion for it,” DeRozan said.
One reporter suggested to DeRozan that he has the type of game that will age gracefully. Another reporter light-heartedly interjected that that means he has an “old man’s, YMCA-type” game.
“I’m taking it as a compliment,” DeRozan said, laughing. “I’m just more so thinking mentally, would I still want to go through it at 40?”
That’s not just because DeRozan long has said his offseason training is harder than his in-season game load.
It’s also for family reasons.
DeRozan has his family with him on this trip, his first in this bucket-list city. But as much fun as he’s having with them, he didn’t need their presence to philosophize on the cost of his sacrifices to keep playing at such a high level at his age.
“Just to spend time with my daughters and my son, that’s kind of been special for me,” DeRozan said when asked for his favorite off-court element to this special trip. “Just to experience this moment the first time in Paris, and for my children as well. Just being able to hang with them, watch them play, have fun in Paris. That’s kind of been the best experience for me, for sure."
DeRozan is signed through the 2023-24 season.
“As I get older---if you had asked me this five or eight years ago, it probably would’ve been a different response---you start to realize you miss so much with your kids," he said. "My oldest is 9. I was having a conversation one day and I was like, ‘I only got three more summers until she’s in high school. And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ You put it in that perspective, and it becomes scary. Because it’s like, ‘Damn, my oldest daughter is almost a teenager.’
“With them being in so many activities and doing so much stuff and you miss so much, that kind of takes a toll on you. Four years from now, whatever it may be, you look up and you start to put things in perspective of like, ‘Do I want to be there for the kids a little bit more?’ A lot of those things come into play more than anything, even if I have the drive to still want to do it. We miss so much time sacrificing that we’ll never be able to get back with our kids. I want to be there for them, my daughters and my son. Give them everything that I went through. That will play a factor more than anything.”