DeMar DeRozan gets 100% real on playing with Lonzo Ball
The post DeMar DeRozan gets 100% real on playing with Lonzo Ball appeared first on ClutchPoints.
DeMar DeRozan recently opened up about playing with Lonzo Ball on the Chicago Bulls. DeRozan played with the Bulls for three seasons from 2021 to 2024 and came to Chicago at the same time as Lonzo Ball in 2021. The issue is that Ball was dealing with injuries during most of his time in Chicago while DeRozan was his teammate.
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To this point, Ball has missed most of his time playing with the Bulls. He played for the first time in October 2024 since 2022. Ball and DeRozan barely played basketball together, but when they did, things came together easily, helping the offense flow much better than it did without him.
On a recent Run Your Race Podcast episode with Theo Pinson and AJ Richardson, DeRozan spoke about what it was like playing with Ball and how easy everything was. He said, 'When you talk about a piece missing for something… Lonzo was that big piece of the puzzle that put everything together for all of us. He made everything so easy.'
Ball's size is what makes him stand out as a point guard. At 6-foot-7 and 190 pounds, there are not many point guards like him, and that's why he presents such a matchup issue when he is healthy and able to play. The one season he was able to play with DeRozan on the Bulls, Ball had a 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio, and he averaged 5.1 assists per game during that season.
The combination of DeRozan and Ball never got a lot of time together with the Bulls due to his injuries, and before Ball was able to come back from injury, DeRozan was traded to the Sacramento Kings in a sign-and-trade that also involved the San Antonio Spurs in a three-team deal.
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Hearing DeRozan praise playing with Ball and how much he enjoyed it shows that it was a case of what could have been. Ball could have developed into an All-Star-level talent if it weren't for some of the injuries he has suffered in his career.
Both players still play well with DeRozan in Sacramento and Ball back in Chicago, but those years with the Bulls will be filled with missed opportunities.
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CNBC Sport: Behind the scenes with Stephen Curry
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Thank you to all who watched last night's premiere of "Curry Inc.: The Business of Stephen Curry," our first longform CNBC Sport TV production. If you missed it, the full-length special is available on demand through your cable provider and on CNBC+. You can also catch a re-airing of the special on CNBC today (Thursday) at 7 p.m. ET or Saturday at 6:30 p.m. ET. Or, if you're heading out to the club Saturday night, what better way to wind down upon your return home than catching a re-airing on Sunday at 3 a.m. ET. The phrase "time slot gold" gets thrown around a lot these days, but in this case … I'm dedicating this week's newsletter to a behind-the-scenes look at how we put the production together. I spoke with Curry, the Golden State Warriors superstar, on a boat going from Oakland to San Francisco during this year's All-Star weekend. It was a cool way to get an extended one-on-one with him – heading from practice at the old Oracle Arena to the Chase Center in San Francisco. Fun fact No. 1: It was Curry's first time back at the old Oracle — where he revolutionized basketball and led Golden State to three of his four career titles — since the Warriors left Oakland in 2019. Fun fact No. 2: The initial plan was to follow Curry at Chase as he prepared for the three-point contest, but he ended up not competing when a potential showcase with WNBA stars Caitlin Clark and Sabrina Ionescu and Curry's former Warriors teammate Klay Thompson fell apart. The meat of our feature is on Curry's Thirty Ink, the mini house-of-brands conglomerate he's built over the years consisting of his media company (Unanimous Media), bourbon brand (Gentleman's Cut), marketing consultancy (7k), golf and basketball leagues for kids (Underrated Basketball and Underrated Golf), and philanthropic foundation ( Curry is the CEO of Thirty Ink. The company says all of Curry's businesses are profitable – a message his its leaders were eager to share with me, given the history of athlete-led businesses that go belly up. Thirty Ink is also in business with Under Armour through Curry Brand, which dramatically helps both the top and bottom line. Thirty Ink incurs annual expenses for delivering on Curry's name, image and likeness to earn revenue through that relationship, and those sales aren't impacted by traditional operational costs. The end result is some gaudy revenue and EBITDA numbers: $174.5 million in revenue and $144 million in EBITDA for 2024. The first half of the special mostly focuses on Thirty Ink, while the second half features longer clips from my interview with Curry. While I was eager to spend some time with Curry, the journalist in me wanted to dig up some dirt on the "real" guy. His reputation is about as clean as any athlete in history. Sportico reported earlier this year he made $100 million in sponsorship and off-court deals in 2024, more than any other NBA player. "I think Steph Curry might be the only guy to ever go through this league that never receives hate," ex-teammate DeMarcus Cousins said earlier this year . "He's the golden child." I was determined to get his longtime head coach Steve Kerr to give me the real deal. What's Curry like when the cameras aren't all on? "He makes every day comfortable for the group," Kerr said. "When he's in the building, there's a sense of joy, there's a sense of calm, there's a sense of attention to the work that needs to be done. And it's kind of a wonderful compilation of all that, where there's just a really healthy vibe in the building when he's there leading. He doesn't have to say much. He just has to be himself, and the rest of the guys follow him." I tried another former teammate, Andre Iguodala . Give me something, man! "With Steph, it's about, 'how can you be a generational figure?' He's done it on the court, and now he's trying to do it off the court, and in his philanthropic ways that he's doing it, and then at the same time, the businesses that he's building – you look at some of the greatest athletes, you know, talk about Michael Jordan ," Iguodala told me. "You can put Greg Norman in there, in golf, his apparel line. And Steph is able to do it on the tech side of things, as well." Curry's Thirty Ink coworkers, including Chief Operating Officer Tiffany Williams , Secretary-Chairman Suresh Singh , Unanimous Media co-CEO Erick Peyton , and 7k Managing Partner Ariel Johnson Lin , were also no help. He's really the same down-to-earth guy when you're working with him? "That's probably the most asked question that I get," Williams said. "And he is definitely still that guy, that really extremely nice guy – when he's working with you on something that is his focus right then and there, and providing that attention and insight and making sure that he helps you and supports you with whatever it is that you need." Striking out repeatedly with his inner circle, I asked Curry directly: Do you have any flaws? "I appreciate the fact that people have good reports on when they have an interaction with me," said Curry. "But outside of that, we all like to be a better husband, a better father, more present at times just 'cause we're pulled, I'm pulled, in a lot of different areas and balancing all of that is a daily struggle, or challenge I should say. But yeah, I'm human like everybody. You have doubts about yourself." I asked him if the weight of being a walking brand – and now the CEO of a company with 65 people working for him – can at times be overwhelming. "I'm pretty authentic in how I approach every role in my life, whether it's on camera or not, whether I got the jersey on or not, or whether I'm at home or not," Curry said. "I try to be the same person kind of through. But the idea that you do know you're on stage, you have a spotlight on you – there's a lot at stake in terms of the opportunities that are created around my world, and how many people are relying on that. I appreciate the responsibility, even though I might be the one that carries that weight. And that weight becomes heavier and heavier, but I have great people around me. I have ways that I can have my own kind of release and in personal time where I can fill up my cup too." My takeaway is: I couldn't find a dark side to Curry because I don't think there is one. "His authenticity, his joy, his perspective, his humility, his audacity – the combination of all that is so unique," said Kerr. "I've never seen anybody like him." I followed Curry around for a few days for the project, going from place to place as he attended various sponsorship obligations and charitable events. Granted, it was All-Star weekend in his hometown, so I imagine his agenda was busier than normal, but it was eye-opening to see how comfortable Curry is around crowds and fans. He gravitates toward large groups of people – even cameras – rather than shy away. "Especially All-Star weekend, the fan interactions and energy that you get from people that just want a second to say hi or an autograph – I don't ever take those interactions or moments for granted," Curry told me. "If I'm talking about a packed schedule of meet and greets and fun stuff and activation and celebrating basketball, then life is good." One more moment that didn't make the final piece but was a fun story for my kids – CNBC Sport producer Jess Golden and I wound up as audience members in a Mr. Beast video. You can see us for a couple of seconds dopily trying to take a picture for our children at the 4:50 mark of this video , before the producers forced everyone to put away their phones. By the way, the notion of parents impressing their kids by hanging out with Mr. Beast doesn't just apply to us – Curry, himself, immediately called his own kids to show off he was standing next to him. Best NBA shooters of all time: they're just like us! Curry participated in the Mr. Beast stunt at a local Oakland high school, where he tried to make more three-pointers in 30 seconds than a student could in 60 seconds. Fun fact No. 3: **Spoiler alert**... In the video, just before you see us, the high schooler says he's more of a LeBron James fan than a Curry guy. I can confirm that Curry debated going easy on him until he heard that – "and then the drive kicked in," just as it did during his four Finals clashes with James. Curry won three of those. Refusing to let a local kid win $100,000 in front of his classmates – does that count as a dark side? That's as much as I've got. On the record With Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr ... We at CNBC Sport wanted to give you the full interviews from both Kerr and Curry, because there's a lot that didn't make the special. As it turns out, for legal reasons, we can't include any audio that actually aired in the CNBC piece. So, we're giving you the full interviews minus anything that made our production. I asked Curry if he thinks he's ruined NBA gameplay by shooting so many three-pointers so accurately. He has shot more than nine threes per game for his career, more than any player in league history, and has hit a remarkable 42% of those shots. From 1979 to 2009, the year Curry joined the NBA, teams averaged 10.7 three-pointers per game, according to data from research firm SportRadar. From 2009 to the present, NBA teams have shot 27.6 threes a game. While the league's focus on analytics that emphasize the value of three-point shots has helped to fuel that shift, Curry's success has undoubtedly played a massive role. (Another illustration of how the game has changed: Curry's coach Kerr, who is the NBA's all-time three-point percentage leader at 45%, shot about two three-pointers per game for his career from 1988 to 2003). Curry said the problem is nuanced. It's not that teams are shooting too many threes – it's that guys who shouldn't be shooting them are doing it. "Should everybody shoot it? No, because not everybody works at it the way they should. Not everybody is as skilled at it as they should be," Curry said. "That doesn't mean that it's ruining the game. Everything evolves. That's the nature of life. That's the nature of sports. Everything evolves. Every sport – every sport is played differently than it was 10, 20 years ago. So, the question, I guess the fear, is like, where does it go from here? Like, are you gonna see teams shooting 60, 70 threes a game? I don't think so." The overabundance of threes creates a stylistic problem for the NBA, said Curry. Too many game plans revolve around jacking up threes when some teams don't have the proper players to execute the strategy, he said. "The bigger problem is that there is this idea that every team plays a similar style versus maybe 10 years ago where you see the run-and- gun Warriors, and then you see the slow-it-down-and-grind-you Memphis Grizzlies, and the kind of ball movement – the beautiful game – San Antonio Spurs," said Curry. "Everybody played a little bit different. Now, there's kind of a more similar style." 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