The Utah Jazz sent out an e-mail today (thanks to David for the tip) with the following text:
The Utah Jazz will match Portland's offer to forward Paul Millsap. Millsap, a restricted free agent, was offered a 4-year, $32 million deal last week. Portland attempted to make the deal "toxic" by offering $10.3 million due upfront. The Jazz has seven days to pay Millsap the upfront money.
Notice the word "toxic" in quotes there. What does the surrounding sentence convey? The Blazers were trying to be jerks. They failed at that, even. This is not attractive. That adjective came originally from a Jason Quick story, attributed to an unnamed source. I won't argue that the descriptor is inaccurate. I won't argue that Jason shouldn't have printed it. I will argue that this is not the image you want circulating about your front office. Things like this contribute to the growing swirl of anti-Portland chatter we're hearing (or at least hearing implied in the case of opposing front offices). The issue could have been avoided by a simple change in wording. "Front-loaded" doesn't look bad. "Difficult to match" also gets the point across. Neither of these has connotations of unfairness or malice the way "toxic" does. Perception often gets taken as reality. Keeping the perception professional and high-road is usually the best way to go when talking with the media, even when the discussion seems informal. That's what you usually hear from NBA front offices. Not as much from Portland.
