Utah Jazz: Wesley Matthews signs offer sheet with Portland

SALT LAKE CITY — The Portland Trail Blazers have struck again.

A year after trying to snatch Paul Millsap away from the Jazz with a "toxic" contract offer, the Blazers stuck it to Utah on Saturday by enticing starting shooting guard Wesley Matthews into signing an irresistible and surprising offer sheet of approximately $34 million over five years.

"We're happy," said Matthews' agent, Lance Young. "We have a smile on our face."

Here's the part that'll make the Jazz do anything but grin: Portland front-loaded the contract with a $9.1 million first-year jackpot for the restricted free agent in an effort to make it too pricey for Utah to match.

That's similar to what the Blazers did with Millsap's $32 million deal last summer. That one included a $10.3 million first-year payment.

The Jazz, who matched Millsap's contract, will have seven days after they receive the paperwork to decide whether or not to match Portland's bid. Until then, they have to decide if the undrafted rookie they discovered last season out of Marquette is worth taking another gamble on.

"We'll look at it on Monday and see what it is," Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor said. "We'll evaluate it and think about what's best to do with our mid-level exception money, and whether that's Wes or not."

For the record, the NBA recently set its mid-level exception at $5.765 million, so the Jazz would have to use all of that on Matthews. Should the Jazz match the offer, their payroll would be at about $66 million for only nine players. NBA teams are required to carry at least 13 on the roster, and the luxury-tax level will be $70.307 million for 2010-11.

That gives Jazz management, which paid luxury taxes for the first time this past season, quite the financial decision to make — especially with the hard-to-swallow first-year chunk of change that will be due seven days after Utah makes its decision.

"It's an evaluation process," O'Connor said. "We'll sit down with our coaching staff and ownership and try to make a decision on what's best for us, not only now but also in the future."

Portland, which is still looking for a permanent general manager after Kevin Pritchard was fired last month, told the Matthews camp that the 6-foot-5 shooting guard was its No. 1 free-agent target. Young called the offer "pretty strong," a description neither team is likely to refute.