The Utah Jazz made a trade Friday, but it wasn't the blockbuster Karl Malone-for-somebody deal that fans have been chattering about.
Instead, the Jazz relieved their crunch at small forward by sending Tyrone Corbin and a second-round draft pick in 1995 to the Atlanta Hawks for Adam Keefe, a 6-foot-9, 245-pounder who was a lottery pick out of Stanford two years ago."I'm feeling really optimistic about this," Keefe said from the home in Atlanta he bought 10 months ago. "I'm looking forward to coming out West."
"I was shocked," said Corbin from his offseason home in Columbia, S.C. "I didn't anticipate anything happening this late."
Scott Layden, Jazz director of player personnel, said the move made sense.
"We had three good small forwards," he said. "This gives us the opportunity to get another big guy in the system. It's hard to find big players."
Keefe played two seasons in Atlanta. He put up decent numbers as a rookie - 6.6 points and 5.3 rebounds in nearly 20 minutes a game - but slipped some last year. Atlanta had a new coach in Lenny Wilkens, and Keefe missed training camp and a couple weeks of the season because of a bad back. By the time he was ready to play the Hawks were in first place and cruising.
"It was difficult to break into the rotation after that," he said. "It's hard to argue with success, but it was frustrating mentally."
Asked to describe his game, Keefe said, "I bang pretty well. I'm a good defensive player and a good rebounder. I feel I can score pretty well, but I'm not an explosive player."
Keefe said he isn't aware if the Jazz want him solely as a backup to Malone, or to occasionally relieve center Felton Spencer.
"Definitely, big forward is my position, though I did play a little center with the Hawks," Keefe said. "But being 6-9, there are some limitations there."
As for backing up perennial All-Star Malone, Keefe said, "I'm excited about it. The big question is how long can he take the pounding. He's a marked man. I'm sure anything I can do to take the heat off him will help the Jazz."
Layden said one of the things Jazz officials like about Keefe is his potential to get better.
"He's the kind of guy who can improve each year," he said. "That's what we look for."
Similarly, it was the performance of second-year forward Bryon Russell in the Jazz's summer league that made team officials feel comfortable about dealing Corbin.
"That certainly helped us make this decision," Layden said. "We saw he (Russell) had stepped his game up."
Corbin, on the other hand, was coming off a season in which, by his own admission, he underachieved.
"I was really disappointed with the way I played for the Jazz last season," Corbin said. "I wasn't consistent. I'd have a good game or a good week, and then I'd have a bad week."
Keefe, who is originally from Irvine, Calif., plans to be in Salt Lake on Tuesday for a physical.