San Antonio Spurs: 3 reasons DeMar DeRozan is a perfect fit

2. Loyalty

Team loyalty is something that is hard to come by in today’s NBA. Players change teams faster than you can keep track of. It seems like every season, super-teams disassemble and reassemble in all sorts of different combinations.

DeRozan is one of the few players in the league who has a strong sense of loyalty. For nine years, he was loyal to the Raptors, and gave them all his commitment and energy. Now, he feels betrayed by his old team. Although he will now be putting on a new uniform, at his core he is a player who knows what loyalty is — and now he has landed on a team that appreciates that.

The San Antonio Spurs organization is famous for its loyal players. The quartet of head coach Gregg Popovich, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan endured from 2002-16 — that’s 14 years! Duncan retired as a lifetime Spur, Ginobili will certainly do the same, and Parker is the only one who will be left out — and it is by his own doing, not that of the Spurs.

The Raptors traded their most valuable player for someone who refused to play a whole season when his team needed him and made it clear he didn’t want play in Toronto. Now DeRozan will join the ranks of all the loyal Spurs of past, present and future, and he can rest assured that his new home will not play games with him or take him for granted.