Toronto Raptors Sign Demarre Carroll

bleacherreport.com

The Toronto Raptors have made the first real signing of free agency by signing former Hawks’ forward Demarre Carroll to a four year $60 million deal. Carroll is the first player thus far to be signed away from his old team. Carroll is coming off of the best season of his career and has earned a major pay day because of it. At $15 million per year, Carroll is sure to start at small forward for the Raptors in the coming season.

Carroll is a perfect fit for the Raptors, and should push them even closer to legitimate contention in the coming years. With the signing of Carroll, Raptors star wing player Demar Derozan can focus solely on playing his natural position, shooting guard. The Raptors struggled at times last season to find help at small forward and were sometimes forced to play Derozan there. However, Derozan is much better suited for the shooting guard role. The Raptors also struggled to find any sort of three point shooting last season. Demarre Carroll shot around 40% from behind the arc last season, so the Raptors surely hope that he can keep it up. Another thing on the Raptors free agent checklist was wing defense, and although Carroll isn’t an elite defender, he’s more than adequate for the Raptors. He’ll be the best individual defender on the team and it comes in a spot where the Raptors need it badly. Wing defense is something that all contending teams should have in today’s NBA.

One thing that is concerning about Carroll is how well he will handle his inevitable upgrade in regards to his role on the team. On the Hawks, Carroll was good, but he was still the fourth, maybe fifth option on that stacked team. However, on the Raptors he will likely be tasked with more responsibility. Not only because the Raptors have less talent than the Hawks, but also because they just payed him $15 million. Carroll will need to score more than 12 points per game to warrant this contract. He doesn’t need to be a 20 point scorer, but he will need to up the ante a bit. Carroll is still in his prime (he’ll be 29 when the season starts), so there’s no reason to expect him to regress. Look for Carroll to shine in his new role with Toronto as he helps Kyle Lowry and Demar Derozan make the Raptors a real threat to win the East.