Utah Jazz: Miles gets offer, ponders Revue plans

The Jazz on Saturday announced they have tendered a qualifying offer to reserve swingman C.J. Miles.

The offer — thought to be worth about $1.18 million for next season — makes the Dallas high school product a restricted free agent, meaning the Jazz retain the right to match any contract proposal he might receive from another team when the NBA's summer negotiating period opens late Monday night.

So that matter is resolved, for now.

What remains uncertain, however, is whether or not Miles will play for the Jazz in next month's Rocky Mountain Revue summer league.

That's just like last year, when the Jazz also made Miles a qualifying offer — but did not sign him to a new contract until long after the Revue, which he skipped, had concluded.

The result then was an expression of disappointment from the Jazz management and coaching staff, especially after Miles struggled in training camp and the preseason.

Even after the 2007-08 season ended, the matter was still on Jazz coach Jerry Sloan's mind.

"He's a young player," Sloan said of Miles, who was taken in the 2005 NBA Draft straight out of Dallas Sky High and still is just 21 years old.

"Young players — the summer is where you make yourself. You have to come with a healthy appetite to try to take on everything you can when you're there so you're ready to go in the fall.

"You go back and ask (center) Memo (Okur) why he struggled (his) first year here, I think he'll tell you he wasn't in great shape. That's the No. 1 thing you have to do to have a chance to be successful. And then it's still very difficult," Sloan added the day after the Jazz were eliminated from the '08 postseason. "But if you want to play in this league, I think young guys have got to cure that illness right away. They can't come in and not be in shape."

Yet Miles — albeit flabbergasted to still be discussing the matter nearly a year later — defended last summer's stance.

"You always get better from playing," he said during locker-cleanout day last month. "I wanted to play last year, but it was the point 'not having a contract.' With everything that was going on, it was not in my best interest to go play."

At the time, Miles' agent cited the possibility of a career-threatening injury.

"Everybody says that was an excuse," Miles said, "but if you look at it, there were three guys on this team that got injured during the summer league last year."