The Jazz are actively exploring opportunities for trading away one of their three first-round selections in next month's NBA Draft.
If they did so, player personnel director Walt Perrin suggested Monday, it probably would be so they could pick sooner in the draft's opening round.
"That's one of the options," Perrin said.
There are several other options for the Jazz, who will go into the summer's free-agency market well under the NBA's team payroll salary cap — and probably won't have roster room for three rookies next season.
"We have probably more flexibility to do things than any team in the league. We can do a lot of different things," Perrin said. "That's why Kevin (O'Connor, the Jazz's basketball operations senior vice president) and I are in an ongoing process of talking to teams to see if there is a possibility of moving up."
If they do not move into one of the draft's top three spots by striking gold in next week's NBA Draft Lottery, the Jazz will own the Nos. 14, 16 and 21 picks in the June 24 draft.
Besides bundling two picks and moving up, there are other ways the Jazz can either dispose of or defer one first-rounder.
Packing it in a player swap is possible. So is trading for another team's future first-rounder. And there is always the chance Utah will choose a foreign player who does not immediately join the team, much like when Russian Andrei Kirilenko was one of its three 1999 first-round choices.
Chances the Jazz will move up in the first round, owner Larry H. Miller told KUTV-Ch. 2 late Sunday night, are greater than 50 percent.
Any deal, Perrin suggested, would not happen until well after the May 26 lottery.
"Normally," Perrin said, "those types of trades are done the day before, or the day of, the draft — because you want to listen to everybody.
"We are talking to teams now," he added, "but you don't really know what you can do until the draft lottery is over with."
JOHNSON, TORONTO TALK: The Raptors have contacted Phil Johnson to gauge the longtime Jazz assistant coach's interest in Toronto's vacant head coaching position.
Johnson, an ex-NBA Coach of the Year and a finalist for Denver's head coaching vacancy last summer, has interest: "I felt like I should pursue it," he said, "since it is a head coaching job."
Johnson, however, told Raptors interim general manager Jack McCloskey he will not talk again until a permanent GM is hired.
Moreover, Johnson — whom Miller has said will be offered the Jazz's head coaching position whenever current coach Jerry Sloan steps aside — suggested he does not want to be part of an extended candidate search.
"I don't want to be involved," he said, "if it's a whole bunch of different guys."
The Raptors, however, are believed to casting a wide net. According to the Toronto Star, they "have contacted at least three franchises for permission to talk to assistant coaches about the job — Utah's Johnson, Detroit's Mike Woodson and Denver's John MacLeod." And according to the Toronto Sun, "Seattle associate coach Dwane Casey and Minnesota assistant coach Randy Wittman have also been linked with the Raptors."
Both O'Connor and Perrin were identified early on in Toronto as possible Raptor GM candidates, but O'Connor immediately denied interest and Perrin never did interview.
Denver assistant GM Jeff Weltman and Minnesota exec Rob Babcock both earned second interviews, but now the Raptors reportedly are considering NBA legend Julius "Dr. J" Erving, Detroit exec John Hammond and Wayne Cooper, an ex-Jazz player now working for Sacramento.
FREDMAN'S ENDORSEMENT: Both Cooper and longtime Jazz employee Dave Fredman, now an assistant GM in Denver, were mentioned in media reports as possible New Orleans GM candidates.
But Fredman endorses current Hornets assistant GM Allan Bristow, a Jazz player from 1979-81.
"I've known Allan for 25 years," Fredman recently told the New Orleans Times Piscayune. "I think that could be who (the Hornets) are comfortable with. . . . He was competitive as a player and as a coach, and he'd probably be that way as a (GM)."
PROSPECTS: The Jazz begin bringing draft prospects to town next week. The team will not identify who is coming just yet, but Denver's Rocky Mountain News recently reported that 7-foot University of Colorado center David Harrison has a Utah workout scheduled. BYU center Rafael Araujo, another possible Jazz selection, reportedly works out next week in Denver.
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com