Blazers offer Millsap four-year deal

[Topdawg13]

Paul Millsap ()


The Portland Trail Blazers elected Friday not to wait on trade possibilities, deciding instead to offer Utah Jazz restricted free agent Paul Millsap a four-year contract worth an estimated $32 million-to-$36 million, according to sources with knowledge of the Blazers' plans.

The Jazz, meanwhile, are expected to continue their push to trade Carlos Boozer in response, with the intent of creating sufficient distance from the luxury-tax line to enable Utah to comfortably match Millsap's offer.

[Topdawg13]

The Jazz () plan to match the offer from Portland. IMO this means they will trade Boozer before the season starts.


The Utah Jazz will match the four-year, $32 million offer the Portland Trail Blazers tendered their restricted free agent Paul Millsap, the team posted on its Web site and a league source confirmed to ESPN.com Thursday evening.

Under the terms of the contract, the Jazz, which stated all summer that it would match any offer Millsap received, will have to pay the 24-year-old forward $10.3 million this weekend. Portland had front-loaded the contract to discourage Utah from matching.

Utah's decision is likely to set in motion a string of moves by both teams. The Jazz, whose payroll will balloon to roughly $84 million, will continue trying to trade All-Star forward Carlos Boozer. If the Jazz don't move Boozer before next season's February trade deadline, they will have to pay a luxury tax of nearly $15 million.

The team recently told Boozer, who will make $12.7 million this season, that he is not in its long-term plans, and Boozer responded by telling the Jazz to trade him. Chicago, Miami and New York are among the most interested teams.

[AquaMan]

As a Jazz fan I was thrilled to see them match Millsap. Now if we can just move Carlos Boozer for a decent package of players Utah will have had a pretty good offseason. Not to mention that we have the NY Knicks pick coming up next season, and it should be a good one.