Jazz ready to exercise free agency

When his fourth and perhaps final season in Utah ended, Matt Harpring was banking on absolutely nothing.

"I've been in this league long enough," the eight-season NBA forward said, "to know talk is one thing, 'Here's a contract,' is another thing."

Today, Harpring should have a much-easier time weeding through the words, knowing which suitors really mean business and understanding precisely where his most recent team falls in that spectrum.

The Jazz, after all, have been chatting a good game for some time.

"We want Matt back," basketball operations senior vice president Kevin O'Connor said late Friday, "so we're going to make every effort to go in that direction and keep talking to him."

That is no knee-jerk reaction to the league's summer free-agency negotiating period having opened late Friday night.

Yet the comment comes with something of a caveat.

The Jazz will, if they haven't already, make an offer that — according to league rules — can be signed no earlier than July 12. But they probably won't be willing to give their gritty 30-year-old co-captain the four- or five-year guaranteed contract he may be seeking.

A twice surgically repaired right knee is the reason.

"I think you have to take the sum, rather than the part," O'Connor said when the season ended. "The sum is we'd like to have to him. The part is he's had a couple knee surgeries — what they call microfracture surgeries. So we'll evaluate that along with the docs and see where we're at with that and try to go forward."

They'll do so while moving ahead on other fronts too.

After taking University of Arkansas shooting guard Ronnie Brewer in Wednesday's NBA Draft, multiple needs remain unfilled for the Jazz.

They're still seeking a bona fide outside shot-maker. But pickings in the free-agent market could be slim, as the best available — Indiana sharpshooter Peja Stojakovic — is currently outside their financial reach.

The Jazz are equipped with no more than the league's so-called mid-level exception, a multi-year deal with the first season starting at no more than approximately $5 million. That's also the case for all but about a half-dozen teams currently under the league's team payroll salary cap. And it's not nearly enough to lure Stojakovic, barring the unlikely event of Indiana agreeing to a sign-and-trade deal.