32 Quotes by DeMar DeRozan

Me and my mom are just alike in every type of way. I talk to my mom about everything.

A lot of people in the NBA don't even take the game serious or take the same approach that I do.

You gotta be able to take criticism if you want to be anything close to great. Even if it's not true. You use that as an advantage for yourself. You can use that negative energy and turn that into an energy that drives you to be something more than you thought you could be. That's one thing I did.

I told myself that if I went to Compton High, and I made something out of the school, it would mean something to me later down the line because I started everything. And future kids would say, 'DeMar made it here; why can't I?' I wanted to stay home.

I've never been one who wanted any type of attention, good nor bad.

My dad always played sports. He played football. I always wanted to play football because my dad played football, but my mom never wanted me to play football because she said she couldn't take me getting hit.

Day 1, when I was drafted to the Toronto Raptors, they had this stigma on them: Every guy leaves. Nobody wants to be here. Superstars, nobody wants to play in Canada. From Day 1, my whole mindset and approach to the game, being in Toronto, was I wanted to change that whole narrative to that whole organization.

Other people gotta be told when to go to the gym, what to work out, what to work on, what to do. For me, it was always my own self-motivation of maybe just wanting to make it out of Compton. I was like that with everything in my life.

My mindset was that I was always going to be in Toronto my whole career, but I was never naive.