The Utah Jazz made two trades Thursday involving shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson and two injured big men.
The Jazz sent injured players Keon Clark and Ben Handlogten to the Phoenix Suns for forward Tom Gugliotta a few hours before the NBA trading deadline. Utah will receive two conditional first-round draft picks, a 2005 second-round pick and an undisclosed amount of cash.
Utah also traded Stevenson to Orlando for Gordan Giricek. The Magic also received a future second-round draft pick.
Giricek, a 6-foot-5 guard/forward from Croatia, is averaging a career-low 10.2 points per game in 48 games so far this season. He is shooting just more than 40 percent from 3-point range. This is the second time in as many seasons he's been traded at the deadline.
Clark played in just two games this season before having right ankle surgery in November. Handlogten played only 17 games this season before tearing left knee ligaments in December.
Gugliotta, a 12-year veteran, earns $11.7 million under a contract that expires at the end of the season. He has been playing little the last few weeks, averaging 2.3 points and 1.9 rebounds over the season.
Giricek will turn 27 in the offseason but the Croatian is in just his second NBA season, having played for years in Europe.
He came to Orlando, with Drew Gooden, from Memphis in a deal for Mike Miller and Ryan Humphrey consummated the night before the 2003 trading deadline. They put a charge into a mediocre team, and Orlando won 13 of 18 games down the stretch to make the playoffs. Giricek averaged 14.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in 27 games.
This season, however, Giricek was caught up in the turmoil of Orlando's disappointing season and the early-season firing of coach Doc Rivers.
Despite straining his right arch in the season's second game and the Magic's franchise-record 19-game losing streak, Giricek got off to a fair start. But his defense displeased new coach Johnny Davis, and Giricek lost his starting job in early January to rookie Keith Bogans.
Giricek had improved his defense in the past days to Davis' satisfaction, and was seeing more time off the bench. In his last eight games in Orlando, he averaged 12.5 points on 48-percent shooting.
Giricek gives the Jazz four European players and two from U.S. territories. The Jazz's "international" roster is Giricek (Croatia), Carlos Arroyo (Puerto Rico) and Raul Lopez (Spain), All-Star forward Andrei Kirilenko (Russia), rookie Sasha Pavlovic (Serbia-Montenegro) and guard Raja Bell (U.S. Virgin Islands).