So it came as no surprise that Hart was harsh in critiquing his own performance minutes before Monday morning's practice. And when asked, Hart gave a hearty endorsement to Ronnie Price in what has become a hotly contested battle for minutes behind starter Deron Williams.

"He deserves to play," Hart said of Price. "I haven't been playing well at all. I haven't been playing well in any phase of the game. He's played great and he deserves it."

With that, the debate rages on as to who should be first in line behind Williams. Price, who played in place of Hart when he was injured, gave his best argument yet in Saturday night's victory over the Chicago Bulls with 12 points in 10 minutes.

Over the past few weeks, Price has shown he is be better at creating his shot off the dribble and he's been able to give the second unit another scoring dimension. That's part of the reason fans have fully backed Price in what has seemed to be an endless search for the first elite level backup since Howard Eisley played the role so well on the Stockon-Malone teams a decade ago.

"He's been able to go off on his own and get his own shot when the clock winds down," coach Jerry Sloan said. "I hope that a guy would be able to do that and its good that Ronnie's been able to do that."

As good as Price has been, however, there are things Sloan likes about Hart that keeps the former Syracuse guard in contention. Hart is 6-foot-4 (Sloan loves big guards), is a better defender and is better than Price at running offensive sets.

Though Sloan wouldn't identify which player will be first off the bench Wednesday night in Seattle, he did indicate he was leaning toward playing both of them in what is the final contest before the All-Star break.

"You guys and the fans see the scoring and there's more to the game than that," Sloan said. "But Ronnie's earned the chance to play. We'll give him the chance and see how he does and see what happens. We'll go from there."

Price, for his part, has been trying to work on some of the weak parts of his game. It's virtually understood that Price is an undersized shooting guard playing the point guard spot, and Price has been focusing on the fine line between when to run the offense and when to create on his own.

"It's been a process," Price said. "I know that I need to get comfortable running the offense. It's a new system so I've had to take some time to get used to it."