Raptors Sign Jones, Bid Williams Adieu

Rumours about the Toronto team nabbing the highly touted free agent have been confirmed, after the Slam Dunk king signed with the club on Wednesday.

Jones joins the Raptors after four seasons with the Indiana Pacers, where he averaged 9.6 points a game as a backup last year and 3.1 rebounds in 2004. The 6’2″ guard made a name for himself that same year, winning the Slam Dunk title at the All-Star Game.

He’s looking forward to his new home. “This is a great opportunity for me,” he proclaims. “We’re putting together a really competitive team. I think the sky’s the limit for us.

“Me personally, I’m going to give you everything I got. I know the other players are going to do the same. Hopefully we’ll do big things out there.”

Jones is ready for the kind of media scrutiny playing in a city like Toronto can bring. He believes anything will be better than the troubled team he just left.

“It’s going to be a whole new [experience] to come to practice and see smiling faces and not to see everybody upset about something,” he laughs. “That makes the whole team rally around each other and play on. Indiana, sometimes everything that was going in the media, locker-room kind of dampened our spirits. We didn’t have all the energy to put towards the other team. We were worrying about other things around the team. To get away from that and start fresh and new is going to be a good feeling.”

The G.M. is also expecting greatness. “He brings a tremendous skill-set to this team,” assures Bryan Colangelo. “He’s had what I could term a bright young career thus far. We intend to have him come here and take it to another level.”

Jones will back up point guard T.J. Ford acquired earlier this season.

But making way for the newcomer means saying farewell to a team favourite. Alvin Williams, who played just one game in the last two seasons because of knee problems, was put on waivers, a difficult end to a franchise player who helped establish the game in the city.

“It’s probably bittersweet,” admits Colangelo. “I’m sure he would like to play and complete the process here but at the end of the day we felt like it was best, I think from both sides, to move on and that’s why both sides came to this agreement.”

Williams leaves as the all-time club assist leader with 1,791 and second in games played at 417. He averaged 9.3 points and 5.6 assists in the regular season and 12.5 points and 4.3 assists in 18 post-season games.

He admits he knew it was coming, but it still hurts.

“I really wanted to get another chance to play for Toronto,” he complains. “I think it was more of a business situation that I got caught in the middle of, that’s the more disappointing thing. I felt that I could play.”

Colangelo predicts Williams will continue his rehab and try to sign with another team. But, “where that is I don’t know.”

To see unedited video of Jones, click here.