Jazz payroll benefits come later, not sooner

Even with Derek Fisher's $6,370,000 salary off the books, the Jazz — when all calculations are made — are over the NBA's team payroll salary cap for next season.

They, like most also-capped-out clubs, still are limited to offering no more than midlevel-exception money — a multi-year deal starting next season at about $5.8 million, or a similar still-to-be-determined amount — to prospective free-agent signees.

That's the bottom line following Fisher's decision earlier this week to ask out of his deal in Utah so can he can relocate to a city where his daughter can receive the best-suited medical care for her battle with retinoblastoma, a rare form of childhood eye cancer.

While there are no immediate cap-related implications, however, there will be some financial benefits reaped by the franchise in light of the veteran guard's decision to walk away from what would have been $20.58 million in guaranteed income over the next three years.

Some benefit will come this season for the Jazz, who won't owe Fisher another dime after the contract is formally voided next week.

Mostly, though, it's down the road.

"If you look two or three years ahead at some of the things we're gonna have to do — it may help us in that regard," Jazz owner Larry H. Miller said. "That would be the payoff for making the decision to give up what I feel we did."

The biggest boost probably will come in the 2009-10 season, when the Jazz have at least $44.6 million in salary already committed, including $16.45 million to Andrei Kirilenko, $12.66 million to Carlos Boozer, $9 million to Mehmet Okur and $6.5 million to Matt Harpring.

That $44.6 million figure does not include salary for point guard Deron Williams, whose qualifying offer number for that season is $6.65 million — but who stands to make more than double that in 2009-10 if the Jazz, as Miller has said he expects to do, gives Williams a max-extension that ultimately will be worth more than $80 million over five years through the 2013-14 season.

If Williams does get his extension, having Fisher's salary off the payroll will at least give the Jazz some wiggle room while trying to figure out how to avoid the dollar-for-dollar luxury tax that the NBA imposes on teams that engage in overspending.

And therein lies the key to how not having to pay Fisher for the coming season also will offer immediate benefits.