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" 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. "

DeMar DeRozan

Organization

Mindset

Game

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" I'm no stranger to pain. It's what made me. "

" I took pride in everything when it came to Canada. Not even just Toronto, everything that came with Canada, wearing that Toronto Raptors jersey. "

" I didn't want to be regular. I didn't want to be this type of player, how everybody else play. I always try to learn and just be better so I could be different, y'know, instead of being content like a lot of people I've seen were. "

" My mom always told me: Never make fun of anybody, because you never know what that person is going through. Ever since I was a kid, I never did. I never did. "

" Growing up, I didn't have a lot and always wanted things. But I was too prideful to ask for anything; I always worked for it. "

DeMar DeRozan

Growing

Always

" My mom's one of the toughest ladies I know. I've seen her lose both her brothers, both her parents. She's been through a lot, and to see her get up every day and put a smile on her face, that shows nothing but strength. "

" 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. "

" I stay standoffish in a sense, in my own personal space, to be able to cope with whatever it is you've got to cope with. "

" People ask me what I would have done if it wasn't for basketball. I can never give a good story because I honestly don't know. I had no other options. "

" I'm so quiet if you don't know me. "

DeMar DeRozan

Know

You

" 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 never wanted to be ordinary. I never just wanted to do one thing. "

" I am Toronto. Outside of where I'm from, I represent this city harder than anybody. "

DeMar DeRozan

Where

City

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

" 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. "

" 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 don't care what shape, form, ethnicity, nothing. I treat everybody the same. "

" I'm sure there's a long list of one-time all-stars, and I don't want to be on it. "

" At the end of the day, the only person to have a better Kobe sneaker game than me is Kobe himself. "

DeMar DeRozan

Only

End Of The Day

" Every time I shoot a turnaround, I feel like nobody can block it. "

DeMar DeRozan

Shoot

Time

" We're all human at the end of the day. That's why I look at every person I encounter the same way. "

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

" I don't try to be nothing I'm not. I'm not flashy. I'm just me. "

DeMar DeRozan

Flashy

Just

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

" I played against Kobe a lot when I was in high school during the summers, even in college, just being that guy in L.A. coming up. He always gave me advice here and there, and even the smallest things stuck with me. I watched every single thing that Kobe did, every game, every move. He made me a student of the game. "

" It's one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we're all human at the end of the day. We all got feelings... all of that. "

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

" If you work for it, you'll deserve what comes. Hard work. "

" I never force nothing in my game. I let everything come whenever it needed to come. That's the beauty of it. "

" I don't care who you are. You can be the smallest person off the street, or you could be the biggest person in the world. I'm going to treat everybody the same - with respect. "