Trading away point guard sends message to team

When Carlos Arroyo was asked by a KSL-TV reporter Thursday if he and Jazz coach Jerry Sloan had discussed their situation privately, he said, "That's internal."

Yeah, even more than we knew. A day later, he was gone.

There must have been some serious "internal" stuff going on.

This external item, however, is crystal clear: The Jazz did the right thing — for both parties. This marriage was doomed.

In trading Arroyo to Detroit, the Jazz showed this is still Sloan's team. It always was. It was never John Stockton's, Karl Malone's or Andrei Kirilenko's team.

Those who disagree might want to keep their luggage nearby — no matter how highly paid they are.

In this case, Arroyo apparently quit working as hard as Sloan expected. Soon communications broke down. Arroyo in exchange for a future first-round draft pick and Elden Campbell isn't overwhelming. But Sloan wasn't getting much return on his $4 million-a-year point guard, either. So they shipped him out, which should make both parties happy. Arroyo gets a new team and Sloan gets rid of a headache.

The dispute came down to something Sloan has reiterated hundreds of times: He'll play those who want to be on the court the most, compete the hardest and produce the best, not those with the biggest or newest contracts. He preferred to play three people ahead of Arroyo. It was about attitude, not potential, about wins, not the even distribution of playing time.

It's a lesson Carlos Boozer, Andrei Kirilenko, Mehmet Okur and any other highly paid future Jazz players should remember: If they ease back or go their own direction, they could find themselves so far down the bench they'll need binoculars.

Arroyo isn't known as a particularly difficult player to coach.

He may have had the wrong attitude, but in other areas he was fine. He was never arrested for weapons possession, accused of abusing his spouse or taking drugs during his time in Utah. He was good in the community, the sort of person his large following in Puerto Rico could admire.

His drawback, both on and off the court, could have been his temperament. He tended to respond to an opponent who showed him up by firing up a quick shot on the return. Likewise, had Arroyo been willing to concentrate on his defense more and his scoring less, and not lashed out publicly about his frustrations with Sloan, he would likely still be with the Jazz.