Thursday's NBA trade deadline has passed, and the Jazz — easily one of the worst-shooting teams in the NBA — were unable to swing a deal for a solid shooter before it did.
It wasn't long ago, though, that Utah figured that need had been addressed.
It was late June in 2004, and the Jazz made University of Nevada shooting guard Kirk Snyder the second of two first-round draft choices. Gordan Giricek and Raja Bell were on the roster at the time, but Snyder, Jazz brass hoped, would be Utah's long-term answer at the 2 spot.
One year later, Snyder was gone.
He was packaged to the New Orleans Hornets as a part of a multi-team, multi-player deal that also rid the Jazz of two other first-rounders who didn't pan out, Curtis Borchardt and Raul Lopez.
That Borchardt and Lopez exited was no great surprise — significant injuries plagued both throughout their short Utah careers, and both are out of the NBA now, playing in Spain.
But Synder? He was penciled into the future.
No biggie, Jazz officials tried selling it at the time — he just wasn't working out. Besides, he was the one who wanted out, requesting to be dealt during the season.
This week, Snyder — and the Jazz — finally shed light on how and why it really unraveled.
In part, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan suggested, things went awry because Snyder was not getting enough minutes for his liking — and, as is often the case with rookies who come through Utah, he didn't seem to understand why.
"The bottom line," Sloan said, "is he probably wasn't playing as much as he'd like to play, and I think we probably frustrated him a little bit because of that.
"Right away, he seemed to be unhappy with what we were doing, the way we were playing. That's not uncommon."
But it goes far beyond that, suggested Snyder, who is now thriving with the Hornets, starting at shooting guard, averaging 8.2 points per game while shooting a whopping 46.3 percent from the field.
"It wasn't a comfortable thing for me, because of things that didn't apply to basketball," Snyder said before the Hornets, who visit the Jazz in a rematch tonight at the Delta Center, lost to Utah on Wednesday in Oklahoma City. "I mean, I didn't understand a whole lot of things.
"I had a couple of guys on the team that got traded that I really was close with, and I didn't understand that."
In reality, the Jazz traded just one player during Snyder's lone season in Utah — shipping point guard Carlos Arroyo, now with Orlando, to Detroit.
Still, Arroyo's January 2005 departure evidently hit Snyder hard.
"You know, I was just a little too emotional," he said with the benefit of hindsight. "If it was from playing, to the stuff I'm doing off the court, I was really emotional. And sometimes, most of the times in Utah, that got the best of me.
"The majority of stuff I've done, I wouldn't do it again," added Snyder, who never made a public issue of being buried behind Bell and Giricek — or his off-court unhappiness. "But it's a maturation process, what happened. You learn those things, and learn not what to do, and what to say, and what happens to friends on teams — trades, and stuff like that."
Snyder might still be in Utah, Sloan suggested Friday, if the now 22-year-old had not pressed the issue.
"He was the one that really wanted to be traded," the Jazz coach said. "I mean, I wasn't looking to trade the guy. But if a guy wants to get out and is probably not happy here, what else can you do?"
When the deal did go down, and reality struck, Snyder had to reach deep down for self-affirmation.
"I kind of looked at myself in the mirror and I said, 'You know what? I'm not that bad,' " he said. "I thought it was something to do with what I was doing on the basketball court, but I looked at myself and said, 'You know, that's probably not it. It's probably other things.'
"It's just part of life, and I moved on."
Now, having won the starting job away from J.R. Smith, Snyder is savoring new scenery.
The Hornets are surprise playoff contenders at 29-25, and Snyder is averaging 20.2 minutes per game — up seven from a season ago.
"I'm fortunate," he said. "Stuff like this don't happen for a young player, and I've been really fortunate and blessed to be in the situation I'm in.
"We have an awful lot of guys on this team that . . . want to prove themselves. We have a lot of guys who are willing to sacrifice a whole lot to just be in the NBA for a long time."
The shoot-don't-you-know-it kicker?
Snyder says he's using lessons learned from Sloan to enhance his Hornets career.
"I'd be a fool," he said, "if I didn't."
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com