It is requiring some minor alternations, including a stay-home order for Scott Padgett, but the Jazz are still working to come up with a way to bring Donyell Marshall to Utah — a way that, as of late Tuesday morning, was still being negotiated.
Jazz basketball operations vice president Kevin O'Connor was still dealing with agents and representatives of other teams Tuesday morning to fine tune a version of the deal that would please all involved.
Once that is done, it would be submitted to the NBA for its approval — a process that Jazz officials believed could drag on to the end of the week.
Either way, those officials are confident that the multi-team trade — which almost fell apart Monday night, but as of Tuesday morning was still very much alive — will eventually be made.
The four-team deal that the Jazz also spent all day Monday trying to finalize still has Utah free agent point guard Howard Eisley going to Dallas and Boston free agent power forward Danny Fortson going to Golden State in sign-and-trades — they will sign with their old teams, then immediately be traded to their new ones.
Negotiating terms of the actual contracts for Fortson and Eisley has been a major part of the holdup.
The deal also still has forward Adam Keefe, an ex-Jazz starter, going to Golden State, and one of the Jazz's two 2001 first-round draft choices going to Boston. It no longer, however, involves Padgett going to Dallas. Instead the forward from the University of Kentucky, an NBA rookie last season and one of the Jazz's three first-round draft picks in 1999, will stay right here in Utah.
Also up in the air are the fate of Golden State free agent forward Bill Curley and Dallas free agent center Bruno Sundov, both of whom were to have been coming to Utah under trade terms originally agreed to on Sunday night and later altered two different times on Monday.
Curley, who likely would have been waived by the Jazz had they acquired him, now appears headed to Dallas.
Sundov, a 7-foot-2 project from Croatia, remains a question mark. Various versions of trade talks Monday afternoon had him still headed to Utah, going to Boston instead — or simply staying in Dallas. As of Tuesday morning, though, the deal had him joining the Jazz.
Meanwhile, the Dallas News is reporting that Dallas will also send $3 million, the maximum any team is allowed by the league to receive in a trade, to Boston. Other trade components have guard Robert Pack and center John "Hot Rod" Williams going from Dallas to Boston, and guard Dana Barros going from Boston to Dallas.
The delay involves finding a way to keep representatives of all involved players and teams happy, and making certain the complex trade meets the more-complex requirements of the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement and team salary-cap structure.
In other words, many contract numbers must match up.
Some of those numbers involve Fortson, who was negotiating a seven-year contract worth between $40 and $41 million. Specifics of his contract still were in question Monday, but by now may be resolved. Others involve Eisley, whose deal likely will either six or seven years and pay in excess of $25 million — including a reported $4.25 million this season.
Those are some of the variables. Other numbers are quite set, like the $5.8-million Marshall will make in the seventh season of his eight-year, $42-million contract.
Jazz officials consider Marshall their big prize in the trade.
The strong-rebounding forward is 6-9, 230 pounds and just 27 years old. The University of Connecticut product averaged a 14.2-point, 10-rebound double-double last season. A Warrior starter, Marshall is expected to come off the bench in Utah, offering minutes at both small forward, his preferred position, and power forward.
E-MAIL: tbuckley@desnews.com