Stats for Sonny Weems

Toronto Raptors' Sonny Weems, left, shields the ball from Philadelphia 76ers' Jason Kapono during the first half of a preseason NBA basketball game in Toronto.

LITTLE ROCK — The sight surely left Raptors fans rapturous, if not nostalgic: two supremely athletic wingmen gliding down the court, each on the brink of unleashing a dunk that leaves the rim quivering in the wake of its fury.

No, we're not talking about Toronto's most famous high fliers from a decade ago — Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady — but a pair of new skywalkers: rookie DeMar DeRozan and second-year player Sonny Weems.

Weems, a former Arkansas Razorback basketball star, is ready to launch his NBA career after a promising preseason.

Weems, who was acquired by Toronto as part of a four-player deal with Milwaukee in August, "brought a lot of energy, some great scoring ability, was able to get up and down the floor and help us create baskets in transition" in the preseason, Toronto Coach Jay Triano said.

Since arriving in Ontario, Weems, 23, has befriended DeRozan, 20, a University of Southern California freshman last year who has blossomed into the Raptors' starting shooting guard.

"We tend to do a lot of stuff together — see the city, eat at restaurants, go to the mall," DeRozan said.

They also practice a lot together, and DeRozan has been impressed with Weems. "I haven't seen anybody that athletic in a while," he said. He added he'd seen Weems, who high jumped 6'10" in high school, put the ball between his legs and dunk it so easily "it was like a layup."

Considering both players' dunk credentials — Weems' 2008 collegiate slam dunk national title, DeRozan’s 2008 McDonald’s All-American Game dunk title — one wonders if they've ever had a dunk-off in practice.

"That's been the question of the year, all year, but we really haven't had a little dunk-off or anything," Weems said, adding that the question has been turned over to fan votes through Twitter. If interest "gets real big, then [we] might try to do something like that."

DeRozan added, "We've joked about it, so probably some day during the season, we'll probably do it, just for fun."

More pressing for Weems, though, is the prospect of gaining a spot in the Raptors' rotation, which he had before recent injuries, including a sore left foot suffered from a teammate's fall more than week ago.

"My goal this year is just to be in the regular rotation," he said.

Hedo Turkoglu and Antoine Wright are ahead of him on the depth chart now, but Triano sees a healthy Weems as a havoc-wreaker on defense. During full-court presses in the preseason, Weems "was able to get a couple of steals and change the tempo of games, so that's the kind of thing we're looking for," he said. "We're going to probably rely on him to come in and guard big [small forwards]."

Weems, a West Memphis native, was excited about playing in front of family and friends Friday night when the Raptors visited the Memphis Grizzlies, but the team kept him in Toronto to rehab his foot. The Raptors lost 107-115.

"I really wanted to see my family," Weems said on Saturday. "I had over 30 people coming to the game."

So Weems will have to wait for his next opportunity to impress in Memphis.

No problem, though — he learned from Chauncey Billups, Carmelo Anthony and Kenyon Martin, his Denver Nuggets teammates last year, that patience is critical to a player's ultimate success.

"I still talk to those guys a little bit," he said. "They're basically my role models ... I didn't play at all last year, and they'd just tell me 'Just be patient.'"

Raptor fans, though, can't wait to see what kind of highlights Weems and DeRozan will deliver this season.

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