{"id":736897,"date":"2026-05-17T17:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/736897\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:09:14","slug":"ill-give-you-100-demar-derozan-was-willing-to-pay-anyone-to-stop-lebron-james-in-the-2017-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/736897\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’ll give you $100” – DeMar DeRozan was willing to pay anyone to stop LeBron James in the 2017 playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

No basketball player has terrorized the\u00a0Toronto Raptors<\/a>\u00a0more than\u00a0LeBron James<\/a>. The Raptors were slowly building themselves a contending team when Duane Casey took over as head coach in 2012. However, a year later, James left the Miami Heat<\/a> and returned to play for his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And so just as the Raptors broke through during the 2015-16 NBA season with their first 50-win campaign in franchise history with 56 wins, they ran into LeBron and the Cavs in the Eastern Conference Finals and lost the series 2-4 with Cleveland going all the way to win their first NBA title ever.<\/p>\n

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The following year, Toronto finished the regular season with a 51-31 mark and the No.3 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Raptors defeated the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> 4-2 in the first round, and in the next, they were matched up against “King James” and the Cavaliers for the second straight season.<\/p>\n

The defending NBA champs took Game 1 easily, 116-105 at home, with James going off with 35 points and 10 rebounds. Game 2 was even more one-sided with the home team running away with murder, 125-103, leaving Raptors star\u00a0DeMar DeRozan<\/a>\u00a0frustrated after his team fell 0-2 down to their 2016 tormentors.<\/p>\n

“It sucks. It sucks. To lose as we did and play like I did sucks. It’s frustrating,”\u00a0DeRozan\u00a0said<\/a>.\u00a0“Now, just have the idle time of having to wait until Friday night [Game 3] to redeem yourself.”<\/p>\n

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The Raptors had no answer for LeBron<\/p>\n

DeRozan struggled in Game 2 with only five points on 2-11 shooting. But that wasn’t his only issue. After his big Game 1, James had an even better performance in Game 2, as he scored 39 points on 10-14 shooting, including 4-6 from 3-point distance. LBJ also added six rebounds, four blocks, three steals, and two blocked shots in 36 minutes of action as he completely dominated Toronto for the second straight game.<\/p>\n

With seemingly no answer for King James, Deebo offered a reward to anyone who could help them slow down the rampaging Cavs star.<\/p>\n

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“If you can find somebody to stop LeBron in these moments, I’ll give you $100,”\u00a0DeRozan said. But no one came forward to take on his offer.<\/p>\n

DeMar bounced back with a crazy 37-point performance in Game 3 as the series shifted to Toronto. However, LeBron still managed\u00a035<\/a>, and the Cavs took a 3-0 series lead with a 115-94 win. In Game 4, James had another\u00a035-point game<\/a>\u00a0as Cleveland won again, 109-102 and swept Toronto. He finished the series averaging 36.0 points, 8.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game in a masterclass series.<\/p>\n

Related: “She’s rubbed some NBA legs, but none like Barkley’s” – A female massage therapist claimed Charles Barkley had the biggest thighs in the NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

The legend of “LeBronto” was born the next year<\/p>\n

The following season, the Raptors were poised to finally beat the Cavs on the third try. Toronto was the best regular-season team in the Eastern Conference with their 59-23 record, while the Cavs were just the No.4 seed. However, it was another year, the same story: LeBron had a triple-double as Cleveland stole Game 1 in Toronto, 113-112, in an overtime thriller.<\/p>\n

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In Game 2, the Raptors took a 98-87 lead at the end of the third quarter. Going to the break, recently retired ESPN play-by-play anchor Mark Jones\u00a0said<\/a>,\u00a0“We’ll be back to LeBronto for the fourth quarter, after this”,\u00a0as James had already scored 31 going to the fourth quarter. From that moment on, the legend of “LeBronto” was born.<\/p>\n

James rallied the Cavs to a 128-110 win and delivered a splendid 43-point, 14-assist, 8-rebound performance.LeBron had 38 in Game 3 and 29 in Game 4 as Cleveland swept Toronto for the second consecutive year.<\/p>\n

Luckily for the Raptors, James left Cleveland that summer and signed with the L.A. Lakers.\u00a0Meanwhile, DeRozan was traded to the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> for Kawhi Leonard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Not surprisingly, the Raptors finally came out of the East with LeBron no longer there. Toronto upset the Golden State Warriors<\/a> in the 2019 NBA Finals to win their first-ever NBA title. However, “LeBronto” became an urban legend.<\/p>\n

Related: “We were bumping right into him, and our journey was over” – Jonas Valanciunas remembers LeBron James’ dominance over the Raptors<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on May 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No basketball player has terrorized the\u00a0Toronto Raptors\u00a0more than\u00a0LeBron James. The Raptors were slowly building themselves a contending team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,193,3213,2955,164,529,3205,185,189,121,6,474,6834,476],"class_list":{"0":"post-736897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-demar-derozan","11":"tag-eastern-conference-finals","12":"tag-golden-state-warriors","13":"tag-kawhi-leonard","14":"tag-king-james","15":"tag-lebron-james","16":"tag-miami-heat","17":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","20":"tag-the-raptors","21":"tag-toronto-raptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116591025407256724","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}