Utah Jazz: Grading The Offseason
Signing Tibor
Utah’s already got Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors holding down the frontcourt, but bringing over the 7’3″ German Tibor Pleiss on a cheap multiyear contract could give the Jazz some great value as a backup 5.
Originally drafted by the New Jersey Nets back in 2010, the now 25-year-old Pleiss is a massive center whose draft rights were traded to the Atlanta Hawks and then to the Oklahoma City Thunder before being packaged to Utah in the Enes Kanter deal. Pleiss has never played in the NBA, so he probably won’t be an immediate asset backing up Gobert off the bench.
7-3 German center Tibor Pleiss made 66 of 90 3-pointers for the Jazz during his first day in his Utah visit.
— Jody Genessy (@DJJazzyJody) July 15, 2015
But Pleiss has potential as a stretch-5 and he’s still relatively young. Last year, he averaged 5.4 points, 3.8 rebounds and 0.6 blocks in 13.3 minutes per game while shooting 62.4 percent from the floor and 50 percent from three-point range for FC Barcelona.
Pleiss probably won’t be as good next season as some of the other options that were still available on the free agency market, but he’s on a cheap contract and has potential. If he can produce numbers similar to what he put up in Spain as an NBA rookie, I think the Jazz will gladly take that.
Grade: B-
Next: Overall