One way or another, apparently, veteran wide receiver J.J. Stokes will not be back with the San Francisco 49ers in 2003.

	Stokes

Stokes and his representatives, Tom Condon and Ken Kremer of IMG Football, have been granted permission to seek a trade, ESPN.com learned Thursday. Barring a deal, Stokes will be released after June 1, when San Francisco can lessen the impact on its 2003 salary cap.

A release, which could make Stokes a free agent about six weeks before the start of training camp, certainly is the most likely scenario. His agents have been phoning teams this week to apprise them of their client's situation; others aren't likely to want to make a deal since they can sign him after he is released and not have to surrender anything in return.

Said one NFC personnel director, "I'd consider him for our No. 3 (wideout) spot, but I'm not going to trade for him, not when I know I can get him for free later this spring. And he'd have to be willing to take less money, too."

Stokes is scheduled to earn base salaries of $2.25 million in 2003 and $5 million in 2004 under his existing contract.

Stokes, 30, started eight of 13 games last season and had 32 catches for 332 yards and one touchdown. The yardage and one TD represented his lowest output since the 1996 season.

A former UCLA star, Stokes was the 49ers' first-round choice in the 1995 draft and was pegged at that time as the successor to Jerry Rice as the team's eventual top-shelf receiver. But the eight-year veteran has never caught 60 passes in a season, started all 16 regular-season games just twice, and has never had more than 770 receiving yards in a season.

Stokes has 327 career receptions for 4,139 yards and 30 touchdowns in 111 games.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.