Utah Jazz: Which of the non-guaranteed contracts will return?
By Mason McFee
The Utah Jazz have four non-guaranteed contracts to make decisions on this offseason. We offer our take on who they should keep.
The Utah Jazz are coming off a season where they finished with a 48-34 record, which was good for the 5-seed in the Western Conference. They dispatched the ghost of Carmelo Anthony Oklahoma City Thunder’s new Big 3 in six games.
They lost to the Houston Rockets in five games in the second round, but were without starting point guard Ricky Rubio. Rubio may not have swayed the series, but the Jazz still lasted five games against the team that took the back-to-back champs to seven games.
Fortunately for the Jazz, they are not interested in hypotheticals. They have a budding superstar in Donovan Mitchell. They have the best defensive big man in the league in Rudy Gobert, and a sharpshooting Aussie in Jinglin’ Joe Ingles. They may lose their longtime power forward Derrick Favors this offseason, but the Jazz aren’t short of (possible) internal replacements. It’s just a matter of figuring out which one.
The Jazz could insert Jae Crowder into the starting lineup if Favors walks in free agency, like head coach Quin Snyder did in Games 4 and 5 against the Houston Rockets. He’s under contract for two more seasons, and is coming off a strong postseason, so the move would make a lot of sense.
The Jazz could waive all of their non-guaranteed contracts in hopes of landing a star free agent, a move that Donovan Mitchell might be in favor of:
https://twitter.com/spidadmitchell/status/1005321075436277761
Regardless of whether they are able to lure someone big to Salt Lake City, the Jazz have four non-guaranteed contracts this offseason to make a decision on. They belong to Jonas Jerebko, Royce O’Neale, Thabo Sefolosha and Ekpe Udoh.
The Jazz could keep all of them, or none of them. So who they should they keep? Let’s take a look.