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Boozer told The Plain Dealer that the Cavaliers are lying when officials say he agreed to a ink a long-term deal with Cleveland in exchange for the team declining to pick up the option on his old deal.

That option would have paid him about $700,000 next season before becoming eligible to sign a new contract. Cleveland was offering a six-year, $41 million deal. Utah's offer will pay Boozer about $68 million over six years.

Boozer told the Cleveland paper that team officials possibly drew the wrong conclusions from his statements during meetings.

"Maybe with me telling them that I wanted to be in Cleveland and wanting to have security could've made them believe I was going to sign with them, but that wasn't an agreement," Boozer said. "I never gave them my word, never signed a document and I never shook hands with the idea that I was going to sign."

After receiving Utah's offer, Boozer called Cleveland general manager Jim Paxson and owner Gordon Gund.

"I called Paxson and Gordon and told them what was out there and the situation that was presented to me in Utah," Boozer told The Plain Dealer on Monday. "They told me, 'You can't do this, you gave me your word.' I told them that I didn't give them my word. The only organization I gave my word to was Utah. I called (Utah GM) Kevin O'Connor and I told him that I accepted their offer and that's the only word I gave during this process. I plan to sign the offer sheet tomorrow."

Boozer rejected the Cavs' late offer of a one-year, $5 million deal.

"Why would they try to sign me?" he told The Plain Dealer. "They've tried to demoralize me as a human being. They tried to depict me as a kind of guy that bamboozled people. They've lied and painted a picture that we had an illegal deal. They tried to say we had an oral agreement before July 1, and that didn't happen."

• For more of this interview and more stories about Carlos Boozer's contract status, look on the Web at www.cleveland.com/cavs