The Salt Lake Tribune (Sunnie Redhouse) reports: After a month of the NBA summer league, Jaycee Carroll has decided to play professional basketball in Italy. The Utah State graduate signed a one-year contract to play with Siviglia Wear Teramo, an A1 Italian professional basketball team. He will report to the team on Aug. 25. Carroll said the decision came after many conversations with his agent and basketball organizations. “We were looking at every option that we had,” Carroll said. “We were thinking that an NBA team was going to make an offer.” But none did. Nothing solid anyway.
Category: Utah Jazz Blog
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Jerry Sloan 20th anniversary game to be on road
The Salt Lake Tribune (Ross Siler) reports: Twenty years after he took over for Frank Layden, Jerry Sloan will mark his anniversary as Jazz coach not with a celebration at EnergySolutions Arena, but with a road game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The location of the Dec. 9 anniversary game for the longest-tenured coach in American pro sports was the biggest surprise Wednesday as the NBA released its schedule for the 2008-09 season… NBA spokesman Mark Broussard didn’t know whether the Jazz had requested to play at home that date. “It really wasn’t anything that was on our radar screen as an anniversary date or anything,” Broussard said.
How to determine schedule for any team
The Oklahoman (Mike Baldwin) reports on a team’s 82-game regular season schedule: “Four games against division opponents. Four games against six out-of-division conference opponents. Three games against the remaining four conference teams. Two games against teams in the opposing conference. A five-year rotation determines which out-of-division conference teams are played only three times.”
Jazz keep CJ Miles
The Utah Jazz announced today that the team has exercised its first right of refusal on guard C.J. Miles’s contract. Per team policy, terms of the agreement were not announced.
Miles (6-6, 220, Skyline H.S. (TX)) has appeared in 120 games (26 starts) in three seasons with the Jazz, averaging 4.0 points, 1.3 rebounds and 0.8 assists in 10.5 minutes per game. Miles appeared in 60 games (13 starts) for the Jazz in 2007-08, posting career highs of 5.0 points and 0.9 assists in 11.5 minutes per game. Originally selected by the Jazz in the second round (34th pick overall) of the 2005 NBA Draft, the then 18-year-old became the youngest player in Jazz franchise history.
Miles will be available via conference call in the Salt Lake Community College press room at 6:30 p.m. tonight, prior to the Utah Jazz game vs. the Dallas Mavericks in the finale of the 2008 Rocky Mountain Revue.
Clippers trade Brevin Knight to Jazz for Jason Hart
The Los Angeles Clippers acquired guard Jason Hart from the Utah Jazz in exchange for Brevin Knight, Vice President of Basketball Operations Elgin Baylor announced today.
With the addition of Hart, the Clippers boast a revamped roster which currently features six new players, including two-time All-Star Baron Davis, two-time All-Defensive First Team member Marcus Camby and the seventh overall selection in the 2008 NBA Draft, Indiana product Eric Gordon.
“We are glad to have Jason back with us,” Baylor said. “He played an important role for us when he was here previously, and we think he will be a valuable component this time as well.”
A seven-year NBA veteran, Hart is a native Los Angeleno and attended Inglewood High School. He rejoins the Clippers after appearing in 57 games for the Utah Jazz last season. The 30-year old point guard split the 2006-07 season with Sacramento and the Clippers, playing in 23 games and averaging 9.0 points and 4.0 assists for Los Angeles.
Hart brings back to Los Angeles career averages of 5.2 points, 2.4 assists and 1.7 rebounds in 297 games. He has appeared in a combined 12 playoff games with the Spurs (2003-04) and Kings (2005-06), averaging 2.7 points. The former Inglewood High School star signed with the Jazz as a free agent prior to the 2007-08 season and averaged 2.9 points, 1.5 assists and 1.0 rebounds last year with Utah.
The 6-3, 180 pound point guard enjoyed his best professional season in 2004-05 with Charlotte, appearing in 74 games and averaging 9.5 points, 5.0 assists and 1.1 rebounds per game. The onetime Syracuse University standout began his NBA career with Milwaukee after the Bucks drafted him with the 49th selection of the second round in the 2000 NBA Draft. Hart played in one game with the Bucks during his rookie season.
A native of Livingston, N.J., Knight attended Seton Hall Prep in East Orange, N.J., before playing four seasons at Stanford University (1993-97), where he was a First Team All-American as a senior and won the 1997 Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award as the nation’s most outstanding senior male collegian under six feet tall.
Knight also has his own foundation called Assist by Knight (http://asssistbyknight.org), established in 2002, which focuses on life-enriching activities for disadvantaged youth.
Jazz and Deron Williams aim for extension soon
The Salt Lake Tribune (Ross Siler) reports: The agent for Jazz guard Deron Williams said Monday he has continued having conversations with general manager Kevin O’Connor and is still hopeful to reach agreement on a contract extension by the end of the week. “I think that’s still everyone’s objective,” agent Bob McClaren said, “and I’m certainly not discouraged by the process at all.” Williams has said he would like to finalize an extension before he leaves either Saturday or Sunday for USA Basketball training camp in Las Vegas. Williams will travel from there to Beijing for the Olympics. McClaren said he has talked “several times every day” with O’Connor since the two met Wednesday and that no additional meeting had been scheduled.
Wizards sign Dee Brown to offer sheet
Washington Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld announced today that the team has signed restricted free agent point guard Dee Brown to an offer sheet. Per team policy, terms of the contract were not released. The Utah Jazz will now have seven days to match the Wizards’ offer under the terms of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
“Dee is a player who can bring quickness and energy to our team” said Grunfeld. “We like that he gives us depth and a different look at the point guard position.”
Brown (6-0, 185) played last season for Galatasaray Café Crown in Turkey, where he averaged 12.3 points per game. He was originally drafted by Utah with the 46th overall pick of the 2006 NBA Draft and averaged 1.9 points and 1.7 assists in 49 games for the Jazz during the 2006-07 season. Brown is a product of the University of Illinois, where he finished his four-year career as the winningest player in school history (114 games, 114-23 overall record) and helped lead the Illini to the NCAA Championship Game as a junior in 2005.
2008-09 Salary Cap set to $58.680 million
The National Basketball Association today announced that the Salary Cap for the 2008-09 season will be $58.680 million. The new Cap goes into effect immediately as the league’s “moratorium period” has ended and teams can begin signing free agents and making trades.
The tax level for the 2008-09 season has been set at $71.150 million. Any team whose team salary exceeds that figure will pay a $1 tax for each $1 by which it exceeds $71.150 million.
The mid-level exception is $5.585 million for the 2008-09 season and the minimum team salary, which is set at 75% of the Salary Cap, is $44.010 million.
For the 2007-08 season, the Salary Cap was set at $55.630 million, the tax level was $67.865 million and the mid-level exception was $5.356 million.
Jazz want Deron Williams extension
The Salt Lake Tribune (Ross Siler) reports: A little past 10 p.m. Monday, Jazz general manager Kevin O’Connor can pick up the phone and set in motion the process through which Deron Williams can sign a long-term contract extension to stay in Utah. From July 1 until Oct. 31, the Jazz have an exclusive window to negotiate an extension to Williams’ rookie contract. Under league rules, Williams could sign for as long as five years and as much as approximately $90 million.
The Deseret News (Tim Buckley) reports: Jazz owner Larry H. Miller already has publicly said he thinks Deron Williams is worth a max-money extension, which — based on Williams’ experience and 25 percent of the projected team salary cap for the 2009-10 season — translates to approximately $90 million in salary over the maximum-allowed five years, beginning with about $15 million in ’09-10 and peaking at around $21.3 million in the 2013-14 season. Length-of-extension would seem to be the only remaining issue — three, four or the full five years. An actual deal can be agreed to as early as late Monday night, but — according to terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and its players union — cannot be signed until July 9 at the earliest.
Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer probably making Olympics roster
The Salt Lake Tribune (Ross Siler) reports: The official announcement won’t come until Monday, but USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo all but confirmed Friday that the Jazz’s Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams will be making the trip to Beijing as members of the Olympic team. “They are two highly thought-of candidates to be on the team,” Colangelo said in a phone interview with The Tribune. “We’ve said that all along, but we’re not pre-announcing anything.” Colangelo confirmed that he would be keeping three point guards on the U.S. roster – expected to be Jason Kidd, Chris Paul and Williams – and said he was still in the process of notifying players who were going to be on the 12-man team.