Barely more than six months ago, the Jazz signed Carlos Arroyo to a four-year, $16 million contract that presumably foretold a lengthy stay in Utah for the Puerto Rican point guard.

It didn't last long.

The Jazz traded Arroyo on Friday, dealing him to Detroit for a lottery-protected future first-round choice and veteran center Elden Campbell.

The pick comes in 2006, unless the Pistons fail to make the playoffs next season. In that case, it pushes back to 2007. Campbell, though, probably won't come to Utah — and instead could be waived with a contract buyout.

The swap comes less than six weeks after Arroyo and Jazz coach Jerry Sloan exchanged words during a Dec. 14 game against the Los Angeles Clippers, and just more than a week after Arroyo conference called Puerto Rican reporters to reiterate concerns over lack of playing time, the fact he was no longer starting and a lack of communication from Sloan.

The Jazz, though, insist moving Arroyo had more to do with on-court issues than off.

They suggest his performance level dropped from last season, perhaps in part because new NBA rules make defense more difficult and in part because the Jazz offense frequently sputtered with him at the helm.

"We certainly aren't always right — but we have to try to go on, rather than just stay with the same guy forever," said Sloan, whose 14-26 team has lost 11 of its last 14 games. "And I didn't think we were coming out of the rut that we were in, so we started changing things a little bit.

"That's not (Arroyo's) fault. But it ends up being that it was 'a conflict' between the two of us. The coaches, and everybody — we, as a group — looked at the whole thing and thought we have to try to do something to help us see if we can get everybody else to play together."

That meant first moving Arroyo, a Jazz starter in every game he played last season, from No. 1 to No. 4 among Utah points. When the 25-year-old relentlessly complained, it also meant trading him.

The move may not have been necessary initially, but recently it seemingly became so.

A star on the Puerto Rican national team that upset the United States in last summer's Olympic Games, Arroyo did not play in Utah's last four games.

"Do I think it needed to be when it first started? I would probably say, 'No.' But the way things were shaping up the last couple of weeks, I think it was inevitable," said Jazz co-captain Raja Bell, a teammate of Arroyo's at Florida International University.

"Every team has different dynamics as far as communication goes. Some coaches will come and grab you. And Jerry's not like that. I've had to go grab him, and just ask to sit with him. And he's fine, if you can do that," Bell added. "And I don't know that that was something Carlos could do. I tried to tell him to do it, and I think other people did. Maybe he just wanted to go. I don't know."