Next step: extension for Andrei

Offer sheets are out to Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur. Carlos Arroyo and Gordan Giricek are signed. Jarron Collins will sign this week.

Kevin O'Connor can just sit back and enjoy the next couple of months, right?

Wrong.

Next really big-ticket item on O'Connor's to-do list: Negotiate an extension on the contract of Andrei Kirilenko, the Jazz's All-Star forward.

Both O'Connor, the Jazz's senior vice president of basketball operations, and agent Marc Fleisher, who represents Kirilenko, said they plan to open discussions regarding just that sometime soon.

"During the open period, we will have a conversation," O'Connor said. "It's no secret we want him back."

"They gave me the impression that they would like to talk," Fleisher said, "so I think we'll probably have some conversations coming up in August."

Rookie contracts like the one Kirilenko is currently on can be extended anytime from Aug. 1 through Oct. 31 of this year, with up to six new seasons allowed to be added, according to terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and the Players Association.

The first year of the extension can be for any amount up to the maximum player salary, which for a player with Kirilenko's experience is 25 percent of the team payroll salary cap — in other words, about $10.97 million for the coming season, and likely even more in 2005-06.

Kirilenko's camp seems anxious for talks to begin.

"I certainly think I have a good relationship with the team, and with Kevin," said Fleisher, who also represents center Okur, who is headed to Utah once the Detroit Pistons formally inform the NBA they will not match the Jazz's six-year, $50 million offer, and shooting guard Giricek, who signed a four-year, $16illion contract Monday.

"And Andrei's quite happy here, so we can begin negotiating sometime coming up soon," added Fleisher, who was in town for the Giricek signing. "I expect it to go well, so we'll see."

There are pros and cons to getting a deal done, for both sides.

For the Jazz, it would mean wrapping up their lone All-Star without putting him on next summer's market as a restricted free agent — and not having to deal with watching other suitors pursue him with lucrative offers, any one of which Utah would have the right to match.