"I thought it could have been avoided," Jazz co-captain Raja Bell said, "had (Arroyo) nipped it in the bud earlier and maybe sat and talked with (Sloan)."

Bell does not know why Arroyo would not, but he does seem to sense how the downward spiral began.

"I could guess," he said, "and say that the proper steps weren't taken to clear the air between the two people that were having the 'dispute,' or whatever you want to call it."

Arroyo never did start again after the aforementioned Clippers game.

"He (Sloan) had his mind made up before I came back," Arroyo told ESPN.com after Friday's trade. "He wouldn't speak to me. I tried to be professional. I kept my mouth shut. But when he quit playing me, it was a tough pill to swallow."

Even after he was benched, though, Arroyo did have eight 20-plus-minute appearances. That, the Jazz say, was a fair so-called 'second chance' — one that ended Jan. 12 vs. Phoenix, the first in a string of four straight games in which he did not play at all.

Arroyo's next chance now will come with what should be ample playing time in Detroit, where the defending NBA-champion Pistons are looking for backup point guard help in a backcourt already featuring NBA Finals starters Chauncey Billups at the point and Rip Hamilton at shooting guard.

"He (Arroyo) gives us a legitimate three-guard rotation," Pistons coach Larry Brown, who happened to coach the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team, told the Detroit Free Press. "We can go small, too, with Rip (Hamilton) playing some small forward."

Sounds good to Arroyo.

"It wasn't my intention to get traded. I signed to be (in Utah)," he told ESPN.com, adding that now "I'm just happy to be on a team that likes me.

"Whatever he (Brown) wants me to do I'm going to do," Arroyo said. "They have a great team. I just want to put this behind me and start to win."

Brown seems to like what he hears, too.

"(Arroyo) knows how to play the game," the Pistons coach said. "He's a good guy and a really solid player."

Knows how to play. Good guy. Solid player.

Everything, in other words, the Jazz thought they had for four years into the future when they signed Arroyo last July.

"You would have thought he was what they were looking to build on — between him and Raul (Lopez)," Bell said.

"But things go wrong, and if you let them fester and you don't take care of the situation," Bell added, "there's really nowhere to go, because you get so far apart that even if you wanted to resolve it you couldn't at that point.'

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com