DeMarre Carroll says he’s leaving a difficult situation in Toronto

Sounds like DeMarre Carroll isn’t that upset he’s leaving the Raptors for the Nets.

In an interview with the Toronto Sun, Carroll suggests the Raptors locker room was riven by disagreements on how the Raptors offense should be run.

Some players wanted to play a more free-flowing style, Sun writer Ryan Wolstat explained while others were content to pile up regular season wins relying heavily on the team’s stars DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. At times, there was a clash.

“I feel like a lot of guys didn’t trust each other,” Carroll said.

As a result, the 30-year-old wasn’t surprised when he got the call Sunday that he was headed to Brooklyn in a salary dump that also brought the Nets a first and second round pick in 2018 Draft. The Raptors needed a change.

“I wasn’t surprised because I knew it was a lot of things going on last year that didn’t come out,” Carroll told Wolstat on Sunday in his first interview following the Brooklyn deal.

“I wasn’t happy, my agent, we thought the style of ball was going to be different, it was going to be more team-oriented, but I guess it was still ISO, so I thought they would have moved me last year, but that didn’t happen.”

Carroll, who has been troubled by nagging injuries since he joined the Raptors from the Hawks, argued that Toronto’s scattered offensive philosophy hurt his game, formed in the Atlanta motion offense. Kenny Atkinson, as the lead assistant coach in Atlanta, helped develop that offense, which the Nets now use.

“It’s hard to just change it all of a sudden. It’s a culture thing, you have to build it from the ground up and that’s what we did in Atlanta. We built the (culture) moving the ball and trusting each other,” he said.

“If you’ve been playing ISO ball so long, and that’s all you know, it’s going to be kind of hard. I think you have to bring certain guys in, certain coaches in, to really build that type of culture and I feel like Toronto is an ISO team, that’s what they win off (of), that’s what they’ve been playing off of for five, six years now.”

Carroll’s belief in culture and the motion offense should fit him well in Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Lin told beat reporters in Las Vegas that he’s happy with the acquisition whether it’s viewed as a salary dump or not.

“He’s going to be so instrumental,” Lin said. “He definitely can shoot the three, and he definitely can play defense, which we really, really need. But he can do more. Just veteran leadership, toughness, grit. I’m hoping he comes in and is a vocal leader . . . He’d better help me, and you can print that.”

• 'I feel like a lot of guys didn’t trust each other': Carroll spills on Raptors' divisive locker room - Ryan Wolstat - Toronto Sun