Bucks make Mo an offer

If the Utah Jazz want to keep restricted free-agent guard Mo Williams, it will cost them.

Williams, a second-round draft choice last summer who played very well behind Carlos Arroyo and Raul Lopez last season, has signed an offer sheet with the Milwaukee Bucks for $5.5 million over three years, his agent, Mark Bartelstein, confirmed for the Deseret Morning News by telephone on Saturday.

Utah made a qualifying offer of $770,046 for one year to Williams last month to keep its right to match any other offer he might get. He made in the $350,000 range last season after being the 47th overall selection in the 2003 draft after playing two seasons at Alabama.

Jazz senior vice president of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor said he had not yet seen a copy of the Bucks' offer but was aware of it. "That's what I understand," he said. "Until I see the paperwork, I really don't have a comment.

"I don't know how it's being paid (per-year breakdown, etc.). Obviously, we want Mo back. We'll have to take a look at it and see what it works into. We would like to have him back, but it's going to be dependent on where it comes up."

The Jazz would have to fit such a deal into their salary-cap structure, which is already stressed by the additions of Carlos Boozer (six years, $68 million) and Mehmet Okur (six years, $50 million) and the need to lock up Andrei Kirilenko long-term either this summer or next.

O'Connor said he and Kirilenko's agent, Marc Fleisher, have agreed to talk "in mid-August" but stressed that a new deal doesn't have to be done in 2004. Both parties could wait to see what the market is on Kirilenko next summer, when he would be a restricted free agent, giving the Jazz the right to match any offer sheet he might get. Also, the collective bargaining agreement will change by then, and nobody knows what that will bring. O'Connor said he was sure Kirilenko already knows he's wanted by the Jazz.

The Jazz will likely get a copy of the Williams offer sheet with Milwaukee on Monday, said Bartelstein, and then they will have 15 days to match it or lose Williams to the Bucks.

Milwaukee just signed 29-year-old free agent Mike James, formerly with Detroit, last week. Second-year man T.J. Ford underwent spinal cord surgery, and his status as the Bucks' starting point is uncertain.

That means Williams, should the Jazz not match, could be either the backup to James or third again on the depth chart if Ford does play.