Jazz deal — Giricek is gone: Disgruntled guard traded

The Jazz on Saturday unloaded one shooter and acquired another, pulling the trigger on a trade with Philadelphia that sends unhappy Gordan Giricek and a protected future first-round draft choice to the 76ers and brings 3-point specialist Kyle Korver to Utah.

The 26-year-old Korver was averaging 26.3 reserve-role minutes and 10.0 points per game this season and seems likely to assume a bench role in Utah as well.

He arrives with a career 40.9 shooting percentage from behind the long-distance line, with 1,618 of his 2,919 career shot attempts — in excess of 50 percent — coming from 3-point range.

"Everyone recognizes he's a very good shooter," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said of Korver, a Creighton University product and 2003 second-round draft choice who has spent all of his first four-plus NBA seasons in Philly.

"And with our team," Sloan added, "his ability to be able to shoot the ball out on the perimeter should help some of our bigger people inside have a better look at the basket."

Korver also arrives with what seems to be a great attitude.

"I'm coming to a good team, a team that has a real chance of winning, of contending," Korver said after arriving in Salt Lake City late Saturday. "And I'm really excited about being a part of that."

Korver also seemed excited about playing for Sloan, something with which Giricek struggled.

"He has a reputation for being tough," Korver said.

"That's kind of a style I was used to growing up. I don't think playing for a tough coach is going to be tough for me. I don't mind being criticized ... I've always taken it well."

The cost for acquiring the zone-busting, streak-shooting swingman: Giricek, a veteran from Croatia who was in his fifth season with the Jazz, and a first-round pick that will be available to the Sixers no sooner than 2009.

The pick will be moved sometime during a seven-year period beginning in '09, and the Jazz — while exact details of the protection were not made known — seemed confident Saturday that it will not wind up being a (top-14) lottery selection.

While Philadelphia's primary motivation for making the deal was to clear team payroll salary-cap space for next season, Jazz brass went to great lengths Saturday to suggest they were not simply unloading Giricek.

But Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor did say talks with the 76ers regarding a possible Giricek-Korver "heated up" following the incident.