DeMarre Carroll was on TSN 1050 and talked about a few topics.
On the free-agent process and how things transpired:
I had 8 teams call me, and actually the Raptors were the very first team, and they gave me a great impression.
They came to my house at 10 PM, and I had four other teams: Detroit, Phoenix, and New York. The Raptors were the first team to come in, they blew me away with their presentation, they told me about the fan base, they told me about the city, they told me about how my family was going to live there. Last but not least, they told me about the team and I feel I can help this team in a lot of areas.
What he brings to the Raptors:
Defense. I think defensively I got to be the anchor. It has to start with me, my energy, my grittiness, my grit and grind, and everybody can jump on the bandwagon.
The year before the last the Raptors were a really good defensive team, I think last year they kind of fell off. I’m just trying to get Raptor fans something to get us [past the] first round.
On whether he still plays with a chip on his shoulder:
I don’t play with a chip on my shoulder, I play with a log on my shoulder. I feel like I’ve been through a lot, I’ve had a lot of obstacles [to overcome]. I wasn’t given, when first coming into the NBA, a silver platter. I was going to have to work throughout my whole career, my whole life. Once I got into the NBA, I knew I had to start from scratch and [get to] where I am today.
In a different interview (auto-playing video), he also spoke about the Hawks’ passiveness in trying to re-sign him:
“Atlanta, they made a semi-push but not as hard as I thought they would,” he told HuffPost Live’s Marc Lamont Hill. “I had four other teams making the big push.”
“They [the Hawks] really didn’t even really come with too much, according to my agent,” he added, noting his agent conducted most of the negotiations without him. Carroll eventually agreed to a deal with the Toronto Raptors.
“I know Toronto came into house and they did a good job of presentation and it kind of wowed me and my family away,” he concluded.
