Utah Jazz are open to exceeding cap again

SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time in franchise history, the Jazz are luxury-tax payers.

They exceeded the NBA's $69.92 million threshold for teams that engage in excessive player payroll spending by roughly $2.2 million for the soon-to-end 2009-10 season, resulting in a soon-due dollar-for-dollar penalty payment — plus denial of a share from the money pool that teams that don't pay the tax collect, which this year is likely to exceed $2 million per team.

Yet according to general manager Kevin O'Connor, Utah won't rule out being luxury-tax payers in the future.

"I think you can see us doing that again," O'Connor said shortly after the Jazz's season ended early last week with a second-round playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.

To be successful in today's NBA, paying a tax is practically requisite.

All four current conference finalists — Boston, Orlando, Phoenix and the Lakers — will pay. So will all but one (Atlanta) of the league's last eight playoff teams alive.

It's with that in mind the Jazz look ahead knowing that to remain competitive — Utah has played in each of the past four postseasons — it could require reaching deep into the pockets of franchise ownership.

"Look, we're not gonna do it to try to sign a body to make it look cosmetically good," O'Connor said. "But I think if it improves our team for the long range, and it gives us an opportunity to get to the next round or whatever round, we hear it.

"I think we're gonna be aggressive in trying to build a real competitive team, an elite team, which I think we've done over the last four years," the Jazz GM added. "Where we go from here, I'm not positive. But I think the Miller family has given a commitment."

O'Connor cites as evidence the fact the Jazz are "paying the luxury tax this year, which I think none of you thought we would."

Utah did significantly decrease its bill with cost-cutting in-season trades that sent rookie first-round draft choice Eric Maynor and injured Matt Harpring's expiring contract to Oklahoma City and starting shooting guard Ronnie Brewer to Memphis.

But, said O'Connor of those moves, "I don't think it hurt our ballclub a whole lot."

"We wound up winning 53 (of 82) games," he said.