DeMar DeRozan spent a majority of his NBA career under head coach Dwane Casey, but this past summer they both ended up in new locations as part of the Toronto Raptors’ big offseason shakeup. With Casey now in Detroit and DeRozan in San Antonio, the two have gone from seeing each other every single day to two meetings per season.
The franchise’s all-time coaching wins leader has already made his return to Toronto this season, while the franchise’s all-time scoring leader will make his return on Friday night. Since it’s going to be a big night for DeRozan and Casey has already experienced his own return, he joined OverDrive and shared the advice he would give DeRozan ahead of his return.
“It’s difficult because first of all you’re going back into an arena where you’re going into a different locker room, a locker room you’ve probably never been in that many times only to visit friends and going in a different entrance but you see the same people, so it’s a different emotion, different feeling,” said Casey.
“That young man, you know, right, wrong and different, he started the whole thing, the stretch of basketball the team is having right now, he started it, and he’s the only star player who decided to stay there, so it was hard to grasp and hold onto. He decided to stay when he had choices to go to other places so my hat is off to him because he had many opportunities to leave, a couple opportunities to leave, and not like a lot of guys who had been there he decided to stay and didn’t try to force his way out or talk his way out, he stayed and showed loyalty to the country of Canada and the fans of Toronto.”
DeRozan and Casey learned a lot from each other during their seven years together and the current Pistons head coach also went on to say that he’s indebted to DeRozan for being the player he was when they were together.
Friday night should be an emotional one with DeRozan set to play his former team in Toronto for the very first time, but it will most likely be nothing but love and loud cheers for the Raptors’ all-time leading scorer.
