The Indiana Pacers will not match the four-year, $20 million offer the Toronto Raptors made to restricted free agent Jarrett Jack, Jack told The Indianapolis Star in a telephone interview late Sunday night.
"It took a minute, but I was able to secure a contract for four years," Jack said. "I’m looking forward to playing with Chris (Bosh) again. It will be like our freshman year (at Georgia Tech) all over again."
The Pacers had until today to make a decision.
Jack said he is scheduled to fly to Toronto today and a news conference is planned for Tuesday.
Most recently DeRozan’s skills were on hand in a match up against Southern California native Brandon Jennings and the Milwaukee Bucks. In the game, DeRozan showed again why the Raptors selected him with the ninth pick putting up a solid stat-line of 20 points on 8 of 16 shooting, while snagging 6 rebounds and dishing out 3 assists. While DeRozan’s all-around game has not gone unnoticed, it has clearly been overshadowed by his athleticism on the court, particularly “highlighted by a backboard-shaking and-one DeRozan dunk over Milwaukee’s [Joe] Alexander.”
For the summer league, DeRozan holds averages of 17ppg, 4.8rpg, and 1.2apg respectively.
Since high school, DeMar has been compared to the likes of ex-Raptor Vince Carter and Josh Howard, but he doesn’t shy away from these hefty expectations as any other teenager. Instead, DeMar mentions bigger names like LeBron and Kobe. This shows me that DeMar expects to and has the will to do well in the NBA.
Demar considers himself an elite defender that would like to guard the others team best player daily. I think that DeMar will surpass the Vince Carter expectations later into his career but we can’t expect him to be the next VC in his rookie year, it is just not possible. Simple as that.
Chris Bosh, Toronto: He needs to get out of Toronto, like Gasol needed to get out of Memphis, in order for most people to really understand just how good he is.
Toronto is still hoping to lure Carlos Delfino back to Toronto but there is some work to be done on that potential deal. There are rumblings that another team (in the NBA) could be in the mix for Delfino’s services as well, and the Raptors will obviously want to get a clean bill of health on the Argentinian’s sore shoulder as well. Apparently Deflino has actually been proactive with the shoulder on his own … seeking medical attention/advice that he can pass on (i.e. – a “thumbs up”) to his future employer.
And the Raps remain interested in former Raptor Rasho Nesterovic as well.
Chris Bosh is in town working on his DVD. So I would expect we might here some reaction from him tomorrow. But it would seem obvious that this is a move that he would endorse and may have had a hand in. It was made public knowledge that he was involved in the recruitment of Hedo Turkoglu and I would suspect he has a involvement here as well. This is just a few signs that Bosh is sure looking like a guy that is not ready to say good bye to Toronto. His future is still a question mark. However if actions speak louder than words it sure seems like Bosh is looking like a guy that plans on staying in Toronto rather than leaving it as has been widely speculated.
