--F Matt Harpring is on the verge of calling it a career after an 11-year career. Harpring continues to be bothered by the aftereffects of an infection that ravaged his right ankle following surgery to remove two bone spurs last summer. He also has twice undergone microfracture surgery on his right knee. Although Harpring played in 63 games last season, he has yet to regain his strength and range of motion in the ankle. "Right now, I'm not there yet," Harpring said. "I don't know if I'm ever going to be there. That's just a problem and a situation I'm going to have to face. But I can't go through another year like last year... so this might be it." Harpring is due to make $6.5 million this season.
--The Jazz will be playing on a major holiday this season, but they won't be part of the NBA's Christmas showcase of games. Instead, the Jazz will be hosting Chicago in an 8:30 p.m. local start on Thanksgiving. The TNT game will feature a matchup of young point guards Deron Williams and Derrick Rose -- as well as, potentially, Carlos Boozer's return to Utah, if Boozer is traded to the Bulls. The Jazz will open the season on the road against Denver and face the Clippers in their home opener. The Clippers have won at Delta Center/EnergySolutions Arena exactly once in their history. The Jazz will play 19 of their final 31 games on the road, including 10 road games in March. --As of July 6, the Jazz had seen a decline in season-ticket sales, although not as alarming a drop as some struggling teams around the league. Even so, the Jazz's season-ticket base of 11,246 was down nearly 19 percent from last year's 13,864. The Jazz's season-ticket renewal rate of 76.4 percent was down from last year's 91.6 percent in the wake of a disappointing first-round exit from the playoffs and the national recession.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "As fortunate as we are to have the jobs that we do, it's still tough when you're getting hit by the taxes that we get hit by. And we're all going through a tough time right now financially. But at the same time, to live in a place where you don't have to pay state tax, it gives you a little bit more of the money that you earn in your bank account." -- Jazz forward Carlos Boozer, talking about the prospect of playing for the Heat as well as taking advantage of Florida's lack of state taxes in an interview with a Miami radio station. All the same, Boozer is due to make $12.7 million this season and signed a $68 million contract with the Jazz in 2004.
