And it doesn't play again until Tuesday night in Milwaukee, just 90 miles or so up I-94 from the Windy City.

The Bucks were idle Sunday and are off tonight as well, so the Jazz simply wanted the two teams to play this evening.

That way they'd be done with their already grueling trip -- and, in the process, would buy their players an extra day off to perhaps fly to various locales around the country and actually celebrate the Christmas holiday with family.

But the Bucks supposedly insisted on playing Tuesday, evidently because that's a higher-drawing day of the week for fan attendance in Milwaukee -- something certainly amplified this week by the fact many will stay home to watch the Chicago Bears host the Green Bay Packers in tonight's NFL Monday Night Football game.

The Jazz nevertheless pleaded with the league to have the game-date changed as the 2008-09 season schedule was being finalized, but -- to their bitter disappointment -- the appeal was denied.

That being the case, Jazz coach Jerry Sloan is taking the matter in stride.

"It would have been more convenient. We would have had more time for Christmas," Sloan said. "But, you know, that's the way it is. It's not a big deal."

Sloan gave his 17-12 Jazz all of Sunday off in Chicago, and the team will practice here this morning before continuing on to Milwaukee.

TRADE TALK: When franchise owner Larry H. Miller spoke last week on the Jazz-partnered radio station KFNZ-AM 1320, he dropped a curious trade-talk nugget.

Miller said that after now-injured All-Star power forward Carlos Boozer learned his young son Carmani had been diagnosed with life-threatening sickle cell anemia, he requested to be dealt somewhere closer to where the child was being treated in the family's offseason home of Miami -- an area much more conducive to recovery than higher-altitude Utah.

As it turned out, though, Boozer spent an entire season mostly separated from his family while the boy was undergoing treatment in South Florida.

And before any trade could ever be made, Carmani Boozer fully recovered.

"So it got back to business as usual," Miller said, "and never really got public."

JOB FAIR: Two ex-Jazz guards, Dee Brown and Troy Hudson, and Weber State product Eddie Gill, a former Jazz summer-leaguer, are among six point guards who reportedly will audition today in Phoenix in a bid to fill the Suns' 13th roster spot.

According to the Arizona Republic, free agents Damon Stoudamire, Darrell Armstrong and Walker Russell Jr. also will participate.

All except Russell, who toils in the NBA Development League, have prior NBA experience.

Brown was waived by Washington earlier this season. E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com