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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - As DeMar DeRozan finished addressing the media ahead of Friday night's game, the first time he's spoken publicly since going down with his injury last week, one reporter pointed out he'll need some new suits.

DeRozan has missed the Raptors' last four games with a torn tendon in his groin and will be a spectator for the foreseeable future.

But the 25-year-old All-Star guard and iron man did not watch his team's 105-91 loss to Cleveland from the bench. He stood in the tunnel for some of it but spent most of the night sitting in front of a television. He watched the previous three games from his couch, as the Raptors were out West, and had avoided sitting on the sideline during the three contests he missed last season.

It's not for a lack of leadership or interest on his part. It's also not for a lack of suits. It's simply too difficult for him. That's been the biggest adjustment as he continues to recover from the first serious injury of his five-plus year career.

"It's definitely tough, just for me personally," the Raptors' leading scorer admitted before Friday's game. "I'm used to being out there. It's more just frustrating than anything, because I always want to be out there every single night with my teammates."

DeRozan had missed just 11 of a possible 394 games over his first five seasons and into his sixth. A self-made star, he has become known for his relentless work ethic, a player that has spent countless hours in the gym each day for the bulk of his life. Now, he's got a bunch of time on his hands and, understandably, it's driving him crazy.

Where does he spend most of his time?

"On the couch," he responded. "If there's no basketball game on I'm playing Madden. That's been my day, every single day, just to keep my sanity."

"I don't have a choice now. It's different when you have a choice but I don't have no choice now. I've just got to stay positive and just become more of a student and grow mentally."

Just because he's not watching from the bench doesn't mean he's not watching. DeRozan hopes to use this time as an opportunity to see the game in a new light. Dwane Casey has asked him to sit in on the coaches' meetings, something he's looking forward to doing. He's just happy to get off the couch.

"I think this is going to definitely help me out mentally, just becoming more of a student of the game and really scouting and looking at the game a different way," he said. "Just understanding a lot more about the game, outside of being a basketball player, honestly. Seeing how coaches approach the game."

DeRozan sustained the injury a week ago, slipping and falling awkwardly in a loss to the Mavericks. Toronto has split the four games he's missed, scoring over 120 points in two of them. But they could have used him Friday.

With the Cavs in town, the Raptors' red-hot offence turned ice cold in a hurry. Amir Johnson aside - he scored a season-high 27 on 11-for-15 from the field - Toronto struggled to find any kind of rhythm.

"We go from a game at altitude [in Utah], where we shoot 57 per cent and tonight we couldn't buy a bucket," Casey said after his team shot a mere 41 per cent against Cleveland. "We couldn't hit the side of a barn with a bass fiddle. It's one of those things that you look at the schedule and you kind of expect that. But we're better than that."

"I know this team tonight wasn't us," he continued. "First game back from a west-coast trip, the [last] team you want to see is a team as talented as Cleveland."

Two weeks ago it was DeRozan's surprising defence on James and his big second-half effort that helped the Raptors erase an early 18-point deficit to knock off the struggling Cavaliers in Cleveland. They haven't lost since, winners of six in a row.

Even without DeRozan, this is a deep team that should have enough talent to steal at least half their games and compete more often than not. But against the league's best, they'll need all hands on deck.

This is a tight-knit group and the chemistry they've built over the last year is something DeRozan values now more than ever.

"It's definitely helpful," DeRozan said. "Amir texted me one night, couple nights ago and he just said he was walking down the hotel hallway screaming my name and he was used to me popping my head out the door. Something like that goes so far because it just shows the appreciation that your teammates have for you and the relationship that you have together."

"It keeps him integrated with the team," added Kyle Lowry, who has picked up the slack with his teammate out, scoring 22 in the loss to Cleveland. "I think when you're still integrated with the team you don't feel as lonely. It can get lonely not traveling with the team, not being with the team but our growth and the relationship with our teammates, we're like family."

The Raptors still don't have a timetable on DeRozan's return to the court. Surgery is not being considered, instead they're taking a patient approach to his recovery, reevaluating his progress on a week-to-week basis.

"I'm feeling better each day," he said. "Just trying to stay off it as much as I can, get as much rest as I can, continue to eat well and just let it heal."

"I always looked at it like it could be worse. It could be a lot worse. I'm still going to come back, I'm still going to play."

Return of T-Mac

Tracy McGrady isn't the first controversial former Raptor to be honoured as part of the team's continued 20th anniversary celebrations, and likely won't be the last.

When it's all said and done, they'll have paid homage to something in the neighbourhood of 15 players from their past and the unfortunate reality is you can probably put an asterisk next to most of their Raptor tenures. Some of them weren't here long, some didn't win enough, some left on bad terms.

McGrady checks all three of those boxes.

The ninth overall pick in 1997, Toronto's third ever first-round selection, McGrady spent three seasons north of the border before bolting for his hometown in Orlando ahead of his 22nd birthday. Drafted straight out of high school, he didn't play a prominent role until his third season for the Raptors' first ever playoff team.

Like his former teammate Vince Carter, McGrady has been booed each time he's returned to the Air Canada Centre as a visiting player, but his case is a little bit different, having left as an unrestricted free agent.

"The way it ended with me and it ended with [Carter] was totally different," said the retired 15-year NBA vet. "I mean, I just left to go play [at] home, it was no hard feelings or anything involved. It was a little bit different for him because of the statements that he made a little bit later on."

Same as his distant cousin and the rest of the team's honourees to this point - Alvin Williams, Antonio Davis and Jalen Rose - McGrady was given a standing ovation after a video tribute was shown on the big screen early in Friday night's game.

Speaking ahead of tip-off, McGrady expressed some regret over his decision to escape Carter's shadow and move on so early in his career.

"Looking back, yeah, I wish I would have stayed, because I didn't expect myself to pan out to be that type of player that I turned into," said the seven-time All-Star, who went on to win two scoring titles with the Magic before spending five seasons in Houston. "And to team up with Vince and what we built there, if you listen to Kobe [Bryant], if you look back on what Kobe said a while back, he said had I stayed here we probably would have been playing the Lakers in a couple of championships."

"So, I don't like to look back. It was great times here, I just felt like at the time... let me say this, if the organization was the way it is now back then, there's no way I would have left."

And in the end, that's what it comes down to: closure. The Raptors are thriving as an organization and they're off to their best start in franchise history. As they say, living well is the best revenge and with the team turning a corner, it seems some fans are finally able to let go.

After all, perspective is important here. These aren't jersey retirement ceremonies, they're 60-second video montages. Hoping to lure stars to Toronto in the future, it's important to the organization that they show some love to players of the past.

"There's no question for me," said Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri. "When I came here, you think about it and I know there's all the talk on how they left and all that stuff, but that's gone. Let's think about the future. These guys helped inspire young kids in Canada and look at where basketball is. Every young kid, prospects, they mention those guys and how they elevated them to get to play the game. So for me, 20 years, embrace it, man. We're lucky to have Tracy McGrady, we're lucky to have Vince Carter, we're lucky to the great fans that we have. Let's move on. Let's embrace the guys we have now and share it and move on."

Giant of Africa

Toronto laid out the red carpet Friday, welcoming basketball royalty to town for Ujiri's event - The Giant of Africa - honouring the life of his hero Nelson Mandela.

Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson and Dikembe Mutombo sat courtside and were among those in attendance as the Raptors turned their practice facility into a pre-game cocktail reception. 

On the first anniversary of Mandela's passing, Ujiri hosted the evening-long celebration of the late former South African President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, also supporting the Nelson Mandela Foundation and Giants of Africa, his not-for-profit organization.
"The world is not in a good place, in my opinion, and [Mandela] makes it better," Ujiri said, tearing up. "I think he's going to be bigger, even though he's passed. He was bigger than life."
"It's incredible. To see Magic, Dikembe, Charles, all these guys here, you can't ask for anything better, and they came just like that. It's touching for me."
The Raptors welcomed all three NBA legends with highlight videos, each of them receiving a standing ovation from a sellout crowd.
"The team is one of the top two or three teams in the East," Johnson said of the Raptors. "They're a powerhouse now, it's no more the Raptors we used to know. We'd mark down, okay, there's two wins for us with the Raptors, we won't worry about them. Now, this is a serious Eastern Conference championship team so [Ujiri's] built a wonderful team."

"He's done a wonderful job but he's showing people also that he has a heart and soul and that the Toronto Raptors are not just about playing winning basketball, they're also about touching the world and I love that."