Utah Jazz Weekly: Contracts, Contracts, Contracts
The Utah Jazz were busy this week. The team spent the week on a road trip with four games in six nights. The team won’t be pleased with the outcome of the trip, as Utah lost each of those four games. This isn’t the way Tyrone Corbin and company would like to enter the season, but they will hope that the preseason has given the group valuable in-game experience and time to get used to playing as a group. The regular season is rapidly approaching, and Utah has finalized it’s roster by making cuts and adding a missing piece of the puzzle.
The biggest news of the week was the signing of former Jazz-man Jamaal Tinsley. The PG position was the biggest question mark for the Jazz going into the preseason, and it only became bigger after the injury to Trey Burke. The most logical option for Utah was always to bring Tinsley back for his third consecutive season in Utah. Tinsley brings experience, and a pass first nature (which has been glaringly absent for the Jazz so far) that will help Utah’s developing youngsters receive the ball in the best position to score.
Utah also finalized it’s roster by cutting most of it’s training camp invitees and keeping forward Mike Harris. Holding onto Harris is a big surprise to most, as Harris recorded the least minutes per game of the entire team during the preseason. This may mean that Corbin already knew what he had in Harris and wanted to see what the others could do.
Who’s Jazzed?
Mike Harris: As mentioned, Harris has officially made the roster of the 2013-14 Utah Jazz. Who knows how big of a surprise this was for for Harris himself, but for only averaging nine minutes per game over the preseason and 37 percent from the field, he’s got be feeling pretty jazzed about this news.
Derrick Favors: Last week we talked about Favors’ big contract extension, which has certainly got him feeling good. But he has also been helping the Jazz management avoid buyers remorse but putting up good numbers. Though he was only 2-of-7 from the field with eight rebounds in this week’s first preseason game, he followed that up with some solid performances. In the game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Favors scored 24 points on 10-of-17 shooting, with 17 rebounds. Utah will be hoping that is a sign of more to come from their new $48 million man.
Rudy Gobert: Gobert played in three games this week, and showed a lot of promise, especially on the glass. In Friday’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Rudy scored 16 points, grabbed nine rebounds, and blocked three shots. By all accounts, Gobert is making very real improvements and could play a big role for the Jazz this season.
Singin’ the Blues
Alec Burks: After starting the preseason looking like one of the Jazz’s most important players, Burks entered a terrible slump. For the preseason as a whole, Alec was very bad and can’t afford to slump any longer as this is a huge season for his career. Alec was second only to Gordon Hayward in total shots attempted in the offseason, and was only successful on 36 percent of those. Another unfortunate statistic for Burks is his sub-70 percent from the free throw line while taking the second most free throws on the team (again second to Hayward). Being fair to Burks, he has been thrown into a less familiar role after the injury to Trey Burke. Even so, seeing Burks struggle this mightily is very surprising as Alec generally excels the more he has the ball in his hands. If this slump continues into the regular season, it could be the kiss of death for his career as Brandon Rush and Marvin Williams are nearly back from injury and rookie Ian Clark waiting in the wings for his shot.
Coming up
The season starts on Wednesday as the Oklahoma City Thunder visit Salt Lake. It will be exciting to see the final rotations that Ty Corbin will start the season with, and how veteran/newcomer Jamaal Tinsley fits into the picture.
As mentioned before, this season will likely have it’s fair share of losses, so what may be more important than Wednesday’s game is Thursday’s deadline for contract extensions. Gordon Hayward has been in the midst of contract extension negotiations since the summer, and various reporters have reported various degrees of likelihood that a deal gets done. Locking Gordon up for the next few years will be more important than any game this season, as it dictates the future of the organization. Hayward is arguably Utah’s most important player at the moment, and will be the key to the offense to start the season. General Manager Dennis Lindsey will be hoping to have this weight lifted off his shoulders soon, rather than letting Hayward go into restricted free agency and having another team offer him a bigger contract than Utah wants to pay. Keep in mind, Hayward could have very high value on the market as a 40 percent 3-point shooter, a good ballhandler, and a long, athletic defender. Hayward’s college coach Brad Stevens, is now the head coach of the Boston Celtics and Clippers coach Doc Rivers has admitted recently to having a “man crush” on Hayward because he likes his game so much. Needless to say, Hayward’s agent certainly has reasons to believe his client could benefit from hitting the market.
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