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Utah Jazz: No luxury-tax relief if Harpring retires

Millsap is competing against every other NBA player under contract.

Teams that are under the cap (OKC and SAC) can do non matching salary trades with any team that wants to "fire sale" a player. OKC can trade one of their cheap practice players (less than a Mill in salary) for any young promising player that another team wants to dump regardless of salary. The other team gets a credit (like DEN and Camby).

That means OKC can sit back and wait for the fire sales and get some really great young cheap talent.

Why would they pay for Millsap? That would be stupid. Clay Bennett used to own part of the SA Spurs. He is not stupid.

If OKC makes an offer on Millsap it will only be to raise the cost to Utah (like they did on CJ).

Millsap is not going to perform as well in another system. His numbers will drop 25 % at least in a non Sloan system. He is not as good (yet) as many believe.

10 Mill is agent nonsense. Look what happened to Ariza. If OKC bids him up let them pay. Millsap is replaceable.

with the Jazz his contract is valuable. The Jazz need to trade him to a team that will release him and then he can come back and play or be a coach or have some other place in the organization.

I am sure KOC has done his home work. Let's hope so.

for Almond. I also wonder if that is really true or only partly true like an inquiry but no action. The Jazz knew they were not going to keep Almond so they would have dumped him if they had a real offer.

I am happy for Almond. Seems everyone got excited about the draft and about guys who played at the college level.

Almond has NBA experience, limited but it is there. He also played in the D league which is more competitive than college. He scored 50 points in a d league game thus showing he has offensive skills.

I wish him well. It would have been fun to see his development with the Jazz but they are in a pickle with no room to squirm this season. Almond becomes a fatality from our organization.

Good luck Morris

I don't believe it. Walsh is throwing out garbage. The Jazz would have traded Almond for cash last year had they been offered anything. If NY had offered, it must have been a weak one. They would have had to trade a 1st round pick at the very least. Too hard to believe that story.

Please, don't overpay for Milsap. If we can get him for $6 mil per year great, if not, let him go. I think he is awesome, but he will never be a great power forward. He is a very good complimentary player, but locking up our payroll again and again for players that are not special is why we are in this mess. If we can find a way to rid ourselves of AK, and weather the storm this year we will be in a great position to do many things next year. Deron, a potential lottery pick from New York and loads of cap space sounds like a perfect combination.

I've never seen M.Almond play, but he put up good scoring numbers in the D-League. In order to put up 50pts in any league, you have to have some type of killer instinct on the court. We only have two or three guys on this team with that intestinal fortitude, and its surely not one of the shooting guards.

The Jazz don't need to reorganize a thing to sign Millsap. I makes no sense for OK to delay, in fact, the earlier they make an offer the quicker it has to be addressed by the Jazz, and the quicker they have a player or the money they committed to him back, to go after another free agent.
The Jazz have until Feb 20 something to try to obviate the luxury tax impact.

Jazzaholic

Fair thee well, Harp! Thanks for your hustle and passion for playing. Hope that ankle heals up...we'd love to see you hound Artest one more time.

Mo is fun to watch in spurts. There just isn't any consistency yet, and not much interest in defense from him...perfect for D'Antoni's run 'n gun game.

The Jazz might not get cap relief if Harpring retired for medical reasons, but there should be an insurance policy that would cover his salary. So even though the Jazz wouldn't save on the tax, they would save money by not paying Harpring.

I could care less about the luxury tax situation. All of it is mute if we can't get sloan out of the picture. He is the only person in american that doesn't have to answer for his poor work. He rode stockton and malone to his only good years and now his lack of knowledge about how to coach defense and handle players finally comes through. Where is our relief from his foul mouth and borish quotes and poor substituting patterns. Where is our relief from watching his egomaniactic comments after the games. It is never his fault always the players. As a person who has been a lifelong supporter and season ticket holder give us some relief from that. Give Horny or Phil Johnson a crack with these guys.

Wow! The Deseret News doesn't allow my comments that praise Sloan. I see where your bias is...