There seems to be a subtle effort in Salt Lake City to portray the Trail Blazers as villains who were just trying to mess with the Jazz when Portland signed Paul Millsap to that offer sheet.

The story by Ross Siler in the Salt Lake Tribune opens with the predictable stuff — about how the guy never wanted to leave, knew he wasn’t going to leave, etc. I mean, what’s a guy who just went off and signed a deal with another team going to say?:

Even if he did sign a four-year, $32 million offer sheet with Portland, Paul Millsap never managed to picture himself playing for the Trail Blazers, even acknowledging the obvious Saturday: “Everything about Utah is a better situation for me and this ball club.”

Hey, a guy ought to be a little nicer to the franchise that ensured him of a very nice contract. Especially for a player who was going to be coming to that team and not even being a starter. But lower in the story, there’s this:

How much interest Portland had in signing Millsap — as opposed to forcing the Jazz to match — remains in question. Millsap revealed that he never talked with Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard or coach Nate McMillan as part of the process.

Come on, let’s get real here. First of all, Pritchard wouldn’t necessarily talk to Millsap when an offer was made. The protocol is to go through the player’s agent. Millsap signed the deal, so what was left for Pritchard or McMillan to do? The rest could wait until they knew they had Millsap on their roster.

Hey, this is big-boy basketball. The guy was a restricted free agent and Portland made him an offer. You’re allowed to do that. Did the Blazers expect Utah to match? I assume they did, but they made the offer as difficult to match as possible.

Now you’re going to somehow try to make it seem like the Blazers were just messing with the Jazz? I wouldn’t spend any more time considering that than I would worrying that Memphis was dinking around with Portland by signing Darius Miles.

Hey, this isn’t Little League. You do what you can within the rules to make your franchise a champion.

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A lot of people are Twittering it, including Ken Berger of CBS Sports. Oh well, not at all unexpected.

So what’s Plan C?

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Ken Berger has an update on the latest about whether Utah will match Portland’s offer sheet. Here’s the part I found amazing:

One interesting aspect of this tale is the fact that Utah is in better financial shape to match Millsap’s signing bonus than was originally assumed. The maximum signing bonus that can be included in an offer sheet is 17.5 percent of the total contract — in this case, $5.6 million. Many NBA teams would have trouble writing a check that big without borrowing the money, but Utah, according to NBA front office sources, isn’t one of them. The team’s only debt is a small amount owed on its arena, so paying Millsap a signing bonus would be “a non-event for them,” according to one of the sources.

Interesting that the Jazz not only have cash lying around that perhaps a whole lot of other teams don’t have, but no great long-term debt. Man, you can win all the titles you want, but among the owners, these guys may be the envy of the entire league.

Berger, like so many others, is painting Portland as being in a bad position with its cap space if it doesn’t get Millsap. I don’t believe that to be the case. I think holding onto it, in this weird economic era, might be a very wise move. You just can’t tell me by January a lot of teams — and there will be several who are also losing a lot of money by then — aren’t going to realize they’re out of the race and want to start dumping the salaries of some very good players.

If you’ve got cap space, you can get one or two of those players. It’s a gamble, yes. But at this point, what isn’t?

UPDATE: It’s being reported in Utah today that the Jazz may get a bank loan to pay Millsap’s bonus and salary. That may or may not mean Berger was correct. Sometimes, for tax purposes or some other reason, people take out loans even when they don’t have to do it.

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Jason Quick has them here. The $10.3 million signing bonus makes it especially tough on the Jazz, of course. I still expect Utah to match, though. But if the Jazz don’t match, Portland gets a very good backup power forward at a yearly salary that’s really not too out of line with his talents.

And don’t forget, Millsap is not only great injury insurance up front, he would be just one more attractive trade piece at the deadline or sometime beyond that.

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I have not been able to find too many people who believe Utah won’t match Portland’s offer. The Jazz have a week to trade Carlos Boozer — which means someone has a chance to pick up a pretty good power forward on the cheap.

The Blazers must know this, too. At the worst, they force the division-rival Jazz to weaken their roster by divesting themselves of Boozer. At best, they also force Utah into some sort of three-way deal that results in Portland getting a player it wants.

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Kudos to Jason Quick for breaking this story. It says Portland is going to make an offer that’s going to burn all its cap space on the Utah power forward, who is a restricted free agent.

I love Millsap, a rebounding machine whose motor seems to run in high gear all the time. But I’m not sure it’s the right move for the Trail Blazers. First off, I can’t understand how they’re going to be able to play him enough minutes to make him worth the $9 million or $10 million he would cost. There’s already Joel Przybilla backing up Greg Oden and that leaves just the 12-14 minutes a game Millsap would get behind LaMarcus Aldridge. You can’t give a guy playing just 14 minutes a game that much money.

And I’m not sure, even at that price, Millsap wants to come here and not play any more than that. He deserves his chance to be a starting power forward in the NBA. All I can think of is that perhaps the Blazers might be considering trading Przybilla, but with Oden’s fragility to date, that seems a little premature.

I think I’d like it much more if the Blazers just held onto that cap space until later, when some team comes to its senses about its high payroll combined with next year’s low salary cap and wants to dump salaries. You might get a more suitable and talented player in a few months.

Patience here is likely better than making a hasty move.

Handing over large salaries, particularly long-term contracts, to players who don’t figure to be starters any time soon is a very dangerous thing to do for your franchise’s health.

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