Jermaine O'Neal isn't upset today. He is outraged, hurt beyond words. He feels duped and betrayed, like the target of a cynical bait-and-switch scheme by people he now justifiably feels he cannot trust.

Can you blame him?

That's why he's talking now by phone from San Juan, Puerto Rico, telling me he no longer feels he can trust Pacers management and cannot commit to playing here past this coming season.

"I'm going to come back, be a professional and play for the Pacers this year, and I'm going to approach this season the same way I approach every season," O'Neal said before leaving for the U.S. game against Puerto Rico. "But outside of this year, I don't know where my future stands with the Indiana Pacers. I don't know where the trust is. I don't know if I can believe anything they tell me anymore."

Asked if he will demand a trade, O'Neal softened a bit, saying he wanted to sit down after next season and discuss his future. But he's lost confidence and faith in Pacers management. And he's not yet sure there's anything that can be done to rebuild that shattered relationship.

"Right now I'm a Pacer and I'm not going to shortcut the fans, my teammates, anybody," O'Neal said. "I'm not going to show up with a chip on my shoulder. And this has nothing at all to do with Rick Carlisle. I'm not going to take any of this out on him. But my word is all I've got in this world, and hopefully everybody else feels that way and acts that way. I've been deceived, and that's a hard thing to swallow."

These are not the words of some petulant, over-reaching superstar who is sticking his nose into management's business. These are the words of a young man who made the most important decision of his professional life, "in large part, because he (former Pacers coach Isiah Thomas) was coming back. Ten, 15 times, they told me. It was etched in stone."

He feels like he was lured back under false pretenses, that he was willfully misled by management. His anger, surely, is justified.