Demar Derozan Says Popovich Made Him a Playmaker in San Antonio

demar derozan said Gregg Popovich changed his role the moment he arrived in San Antonio, calling him the point guard at his first shootaround and pushing him into a setup role he had never played before. The move forced him to look for teammates first, and he said it eventually made the game easier for him later in contests.

Popovich's First Shootaround

"I remember my first shootaround when I got to San Antonio," DeRozan said. "Pop told everybody I’m the point guard." He said he had never played point guard in his life, and the instruction immediately changed what he had to do on the floor.

Instead of thinking only about scoring, he said the job became, "Man, I got to get everybody else going." That shift, in his telling, moved him into a different kind of vision and made him a playmaker first.

DeRozan's Scoring Mindset

DeRozan said he did not realize the change at first. "I think I didn’t realize it when I got to San Antonio," he said. "I got to shoot it thirty, thirty-five times. I’m getting after it."

Popovich redirected that instinct by teaching him to use teammates to make the game easier later. "Pop taught me how to use my teammates to make it easier for me later in the game," DeRozan said. "That opened up the game for me super easy."

The contrast is sharp: a player who expected to hunt shots was instead asked to organize possessions and create spacing by involving everyone else. DeRozan said the approach exposed "a different type of vision" he did not know he had, and that was the part that changed how he played after the ball found him again.

Fourth-Quarter Trust

The late-game instruction fit the same pattern. DeRozan said Popovich would always tell him in the fourth quarter, "Do what you need to do. Go win the game."

That mix of structure and freedom defined the role change in San Antonio: first build the game, then finish it. DeRozan said the process "made me a playmaker first," and that is the part of the Spurs period that still frames how he describes Popovich's coaching now.