Utah Jazz: 3 takeaways from the 2018 offseason
By Mason McFee
To date, the Utah Jazz have had a quiet offseason compared to last summer’s, but it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a good one.
You know the drill. The Utah Jazz lost star forward Gordon Hayward to the Boston Celtics, general manager Dennis Lindsey fleeced the Denver Nuggets in a draft night trade for Donovan Mitchell, and the Jazz dispatched the Oklahoma City Thunder in six games before losing to the Houston Rockets. We’ve already been there.
No, this is about what the Jazz have done since then in order to prepare for next season.
To the casual NBA fan, the Jazz have had a pretty boring offseason. They re-signed Derrick Favors, Dante Exum and Raul Neto, guaranteed the contracts of Thabo Sefolosha and Ekpe Udoh, drafted Grayson Allen 21st overall in this year’s draft and signed Naz Mitrou-Long and Georges Niang to a two-way contract and multi-year contract, respectively. The only offseason loss so far has been the waiving of Jonas Jerebko, who’s already signed with the Golden State Warriors.
TL:DR: The Jazz kept almost all of their free agents this offseason.
While they didn’t make any headlines like their Western Conference counterparts signing a LeBron James or (re-)signing a Paul George, Utah’s moves provide great insight as to what Dennis Lindsey’s plan is moving forward.