Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports reports:
Concerned about a lackluster start that has left them in ninth place in the Western Conference and motivated not to pay a hefty luxury-tax bill for moderate success, the Utah Jazz appear willing to trade anyone on their roster but point guard Deron Williams(notes), multiple league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
The Jazz have a payroll exceeding $77 million with five players making at least $9 million this season. Their dilemma: While they would like to shed some salary, they want to remain competitive enough to at least contend for a playoff berth.
Carlos Boozer(notes), who is making $12.6 million in the final season of his contract, has attracted interest, but sources said the Jazz have yet to enter any substantive trade talks involving the forward. Jazz coach Jerry Sloan has told management he’d prefer to keep Boozer for the season to help with the team’s playoff push, but ownership wants to avoid paying as much luxury tax as possible.
In comparing the numbers of the main players this year vs. previous seasons, Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer are doing their part, but the productivity of Okur, Kirilenko, Brewer, Miles and Millsap is not what it was last year, and they were an 8th seed last year. The team is actually better when minimum wage guys like Wesley Mathews and/or Kyrylo Fesenko play. Also in the last ten games, the Jazz’s defense improved but their offense efficiency ranked as 27th in the league. Ten games ago is around when they put CJ Miles into the starting lineup over Mathews.