DeMar DeRozan Shares His Advice to Scottie Barnes as Raptors' Next Franchise Star

“Don’t worry, I got us...”

It was 13 years ago that DeMar DeRozan posted the five-word Tweet on the night of June 28, 2010, just moments after news broke that Chris Bosh would be leaving the Toronto Raptors. DeRozan was crushed, he recalled. There wasn’t the excitement that came with knowing he was now the future of the organization. Instead, it was just disappointment that his veteran teammate and mentor was heading to Miami.

“You just move on from it,” DeRozan told AllRaptors on Thursday night. “It definitely was something that was a learning experience early. I think if I had three or four years to feel it, it kind of woulda been different but it happened so quick, one year playing with Chris and moving on from there. It’s a unique feeling that you just got to keep moving on from.”

Now it’s Scottie Barnes’ turn.

There was no grand proclamation of confidence from Barnes when news broke that his All-NBA teammate Pascal Siakam was being dealt to the Indiana Pacers. Frankly, Barnes knew it was coming.

“We've been set up for that from Day 1,” Barnes said Thursday. “They've tried to build around me and start off with me from there, so it ain’t nothing new.”

What’s new is the load Barnes is going to have to carry.

There’s nowhere to hide anymore. There’s no star teammate to help with that load, to ease the burden when opposing defenses clamp down in crunch time. This is Barnes’ team for the foreseeable future.

“I feel like every competitor kinda wants that in the sense that kind of have those opportunities to go out there and play freely, mistake-free, and not have to think about if you make a mistake coming out of the game,” DeRozan said. “You can kinda learn through your mistakes and kind of fast forward your learning process.”

That’s what the Raptors are expecting moving forward.

Barnes is going to have ups and downs. He looked stellar against the Chicago Bulls on Friday with 31 points, seven rebounds, and six assists, but a careless pass and a couple of clumsy plays late in the fourth cost Toronto.

The mistakes are OK for now. Nobody is going to yank him from a game when he screws up. It’s been a couple of years since that’s happened anyway. But still, there’s room to learn with the stakes less high.

For DeRozan, that was the silver lining when Bosh left. He had the opportunity to play through and learn from his mistakes. His sophomore year wasn’t exactly pretty with as many turnovers as assists and below-average shooting efficiency, but it was part of the long-term plan.

That’s what the journey is all about.

Nobody is expecting Barnes’ next steps to all be uphill. Just last season showed how Barnes’ development won’t be linear. But now he has an opportunity to really show who he is.

“Accept the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the frustrations, and the struggles,” DeRozan advised Barnes. “It’s all going to shape you in the long run. When everything gets to rolling, you’re going to be a hell of a player, a hell of a talent.”