It's looking like Jarrett Jack is going to be a Raptor. The Indiana Pacers have until 11:59 tonight (Monday) to match the Raptors offer to the big combo guard and it's unlikely to happen, according to league sources. The Pacers have had attendance problems - they ranked 28th in the league at 14,182 a game - and the thinking is as much as they liked Jack and wanted to keep him, having between $17-18-million tied up in their point guard spot (T.J Ford $8.5-million; Jamaal Tinsley $7.5-million and whatever they end up spending on rookie A.J. Price and free agent Travis Deiner) is probably enough for a team that will be very touch-and-go to make the playoffs is probably enough.
In an ideal world Indiana would have traded either Tinsley or Ford and kept Jack, but Tinsley is hard to trade in this market because he's overpaid, owed $15-million and otherwise a pox on your franchise, at least according to the Pacers. And T.J? Well who exactly is going to spend $17-million on him over the next two years? Talk about a guy who needs to have a great season to revive his career. That's three franchises in a row where he's shown up, created a controversy about his role and ended up coming out on the short end of it. Ford is still a guy who can change a game, and it will be interesting to see what happens this year in Indy when he's the undisputed floor leader - I'm predicting some good numbers if he stays healthy - but I can't imagine a winning team taking a chance on him again, not at $8.5-million a year.
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I didn't see any of Demar DeRozan's games at the Raptors now concluded NBA Summer League, but looking at his line the one thing I liked was that he took it upon himself to take just five three-pointers. It's not in his arsenal right now, which isn't to say it won't be at some point in his career, but I like the fact that he was able to find ways to get up 15 shots a game without taking threes that the opposition was likely daring him to shoot. That suggests he was running the lanes and working hard in the half-court to find his shots. He converted 49.3 per cent of them which implies a mid-range game with promise. In fact, if you take away the five threes (he made one) he shot better than 50 per cent for the week. If you are going to be the fifth option, on the court to run wide on the break and slash into space on the half-court, that's the kind of efficiency that will keep you on the floor.