After two seasons in Utah, Ronnie Price needs no education in how tough it can be to find minutes playing behind Deron Williams on a Jazz team that makes a standard practice of carrying three point guards on its roster.
Price had played in only 13 of the previous 33 games, seeing no more than nine minutes of action, before he won coach Jerry Sloan 's admiration by nearly leading the Jazz back from a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter of Monday's Game 5 loss to the Lakers. As few opportunities as he has had to play, Price nevertheless said he wanted to return to the Jazz as a free agent. The former Utah Valley State player made $1.188 million this season, the last of a two-year deal.
"If this was a losing organization, then we would be talking about something else, but it's not," Price said. "We win here. We've got a great group of guys here. We've got a great coaching staff here. We've got great management here, a great organization here.
"Any player in the NBA would want to be a part of this organization, so I would be silly sitting here acting like I didn't want to be here. Of course, I want to be here. Of course, I want to come back. That's easy."
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Making a Fess
The Jazz have until June 15 to decide about exercising an $870,000 option to bring back center Kyrylo Fesenko , with Fesenko looking ahead to a make-or-break season regardless of whether he is with Utah or another team.
"I hope I will follow the trail of C.J. Miles and prove that I deserve to be here," Fesenko said, "and I think that whatever decision Jazz take, it's going to be really important year, next season for me, and I will just do my best."
Fesenko will spend August playing for Ukraine in relegation round games in advance of the European championships. How that affects his availability for summer league is uncertain, with Fesenko saying national team practice begins in early July.
"I will definitely play for them because I cannot skip the third year in a row," Fesenko said, "because as I said before, my Ukrainian fans who like before, everybody hate me.
"No, really, because they think that I get cocky, that I don't care about my team, I don't care about my country, and that's not true."
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Harpring's future
Not only does he plan on returning to the Jazz next season, Matt Harpring does not expect to have to undergo surgery this offseason, a rarity in recent summers. "That doesn't mean that three months from now, something might come up, with my luck," Harpring said.
Harpring had surgery to remove a bone spur last summer, but suffered a devastating infection that nearly cost him his career. He missed all of training camp and the preseason but recovered to play in 63 games, averaging 4.4 points in 11 minutes.
Harpring said his ankle felt "100 times better" last summer with the bone spur than it does now. "There's a lot of wishes that I have," Harpring said, "but the reality is you've got to play with the hand that's dealt and that was the hand I was dealt."
rsiler@sltrib.com
