How DeMar DeRozan secretly became the NBA’s best quarterback

DeMar DeRozan grabs a football, knowing he can show his Chicago Bulls teammates something special.

The six-time NBA All-Star, dressed in a black Nipsey Hussle T-shirt and sweatpants, approaches the 50-yard line, with Zach LaVine standing next to him. Ayo Dosunmu lines up as DeRozan’s receiver and takes off down the field. DeRozan pumps fakes and signals Dosunmu to go deeper before unlocking a perfect spiral over the head of a team personnel member and straight into Dosunmu’s waiting hands as his intended receiver enters in the end zone. LaVine’s jaw drops in disbelief.

“I didn’t know DeMar had an arm like that. It’s not a mechanism, he just operated it,” LaVine said later. “It was impressive to see that, not about speed or power, just smooth throwing. Like, oh my god DeMar. My face said it all.”

It was the final evening of the Bulls’ week-long training camp in Nashville, Tennessee, and the team was touring the Tennessee Titans’ facilities. The tour included a tour of an NFL locker and weight room and a meeting with Titans coach Mike Vrabel before the team had the chance to take the practice field , where DeRozan showed off his skills.

Shortly after his touchdown pass to Dosunmu, DeRozan threw the ball from about the 10-yard line, about 60 yards downfield, into the hands of another receiver, his teammates’ jaws dropping at the skill of DeRozan’s previously unknown quarterbacks.

Here is @DeMar_DeRozan carelessly throw the ball from the opposite 10 to the 20 😳 pic.twitter.com/NWiUzX1kyB

– Chicago Bulls (@chicagobulls) October 7, 2023

“None of them have actually seen me throw a football like that, so I thought they would definitely be shocked,” DeRozan says with a laugh. “You know, everyone says he plays football, but I think the ease with which I threw it and threw it on the point was definitely the shock.”

DeRozan grew up as a basketball prodigy. He was already one of the top recruits in the country by the time he arrived at Compton (Calif.) High School, where he averaged 26 points per game as a freshman. But he also played soccer growing up, but never on an organized team.

“I was always the quarterback in elementary school, in middle school, in my neighborhood, on the street, trying to throw a light pole at a light pole,” DeRozan told ESPN. Even when I was in high school, I was having fun with our high school football team. I never wore a costume or put on pads.”

Watching DeRozan unleash passes in a now-viral video after the team’s outing at the Titans’ practice facility brought back memories for Keith Miller. Now running his own football recruiting business in the Los Angeles area, Miller was on the coaching staff at Compton High School when DeRozan was there from 2004 to 2008, and he remembers a similar time when DeRozan had shocked observers with his passing ability.

A young DeRozan ran the track during the summer between his junior and senior years, heading to the gym for basketball practice while the football team was on the field.

He said, ‘Coach, let me throw, let me throw,'” Miller recalled in a phone interview with ESPN last week. “I’m like, ‘Dude, you’re not playing football, get out of here.’

“‘Coach, let me throw, let me throw.’ All right, all right. He says to someone, “All right, go deep.” He goes deep and I’m like, “OK, are you going to throw it? And he says, “Hey man, deeper, go further.” And then he uncorks a bullet, it must travel over 70 yards. I couldn’t believe what I just saw.

At this point, Miller already knew DeRozan as the campus basketball star headed to the big time. Basketball games at Compton High School became a hot topic once DeRozan entered the picture and the football team came out to show their support. Miller had already heard the rumors and hype around DeRozan: “He was a freshman and you hear, this guy had a 40-inch vertical, he does 1,000 heel raises at night before he goes to sleep, he’s Master P.’s son’s best friend,” Miller said – but it was the first time he’d seen him in action.

Miller was stunned.

“He looked at my face afterward and then he ran off the field laughing and laughing,” Miller said.

“I’ve always been like that,” DeRozan said. “If the basketball team was on the track, I’d be on the football field, throwing the ball really far, and then I’d be gone. Even at lunch, I remember throwing the ball. [from] from one side of the field to the other, just to play.”

Although he had never seen DeRozan’s quarterback arm before the trip to Nashville, Bulls guard Coby White said he wasn’t too surprised by DeRozan’s football talent. DeRozan is 6-foot-6, 220 pounds — for comparison, Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert is listed at 6-6, 236 — and White has seen impressive passing skills in Bulls practices.

“Here he’s throwing the basketball all over the court with his left arm with precision,” White said of the right-handed DeRozan after practice last week. “So seeing him do that wasn’t really surprising. He just gives off that vibe like he’d be good at a lot of sports.”

Could DeRozan have had a future football career if he had changed direction? Miller absolutely believes it.

“We always tried to play DeMar, just because with his size and athleticism, he would always be pretty unstoppable on the football field,” Miller said. “You just put the ball in his hands as a QB, let him run and throw the ball, he was going to make a lot of plays. We knew once he had that big junior year…he There was no shooting at him going on the football field, but it was a good time to joke about it.”

DeRozan agrees that he could have had a future in football if he had chosen that path, comparing his style of play to that of former Carolina Panthers QB Cam Newton, who won MVP honors in the NFL in 2015.

DeRozan’s late father, Frank, was a football player, so DeRozan always watched the game. However, he said his mother never wanted him to play football, given the sport’s toll on its players, and DeRozan acknowledged he knew it wasn’t the right sport for him. .

“I’ve always been so engrossed in basketball,” DeRozan said. “I always felt like I could have played both, but I wasn’t trying to get hit.”