Speaking to reporters at the team’s Media Day this week, forward Rudy Gay explained his interest in joining the Jazz this summer after spending four seasons as an effective tweener forward with the Spurs.
“I’ve played with [All-Star point guard Mike Conley] before, and it’s always good to know a guy on the team,” the 6’8″ Gay said of the decision, according to Eric Walden of the Salt Lake Tribune (via Twitter).
Gay also mentioned that Jazz head coach Quin Snyder delivered a heck of a pitch in an effective 45-to-60-minute recruitment discussion, per Walden. Utah inked the 35-year-old to a three-year, $18.6MM deal this summer, with a player option for the 2023/24 season. In his 15th NBA season, Gay averaged 11.4 PPG, 4.8 RPG and 1.4 APG. He also boasted solid shooting splits of .420/.381/.804 across 63 games.
There’s more out of Utah:
- The Jazz have recently announced a series on front office changes, per Eric Walden of the Salt Lake Tribune (Twitter link). The most significant change among these transitions is assistant general manager David Morway‘s decision to become the club’s senior basketball advisor, tweets Tony Jones of The Athletic. Morway, who played a big role in recruiting the aforementioned Gay to Utah, reportedly opted to change his role in an effort to spend more time with his family, Jones adds (Twitter link).
- In some exciting health news for the Jazz, general manager Justin Zanik stated that Utah’s entire organization is vaccinated during his Media Day presser, per Tony Jones of The Athletic (via Twitter).
- The Jazz were off and running for their first day training camp for the 2021/22 season, according to Sarah Todd of The Deseret News. “We didn’t spend too much time on teaching much stuff,” Conley reflected following the club’s first practice. “Normally in training camp you spend a good amount of time just walking around and going through detail after detail. With the vets we brought in … we’re allowed to just skip all that and just go straight to live action or working on different things that can expedite our situation as a team. So having that kind of group is huge.” The Jazz were the top seed in the West for the 2020/21 season, but were knocked out in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs. This revamped club, boasting more frontcourt flexibility and hoping for better health from its All-Star backcourt of Conley and Donovan Mitchell in the playoffs, appears hopeful to prove itself all over again.
They got Butler from the draft and Whiteside, but they’re basically running it back again. Jazz really better hope they can stay healthy. Unfortunately, if not, then they’ll likely be looking at pretty much the same result as last year, without home-court.
As always UTA ceiling is R1WC… I don’t understand why they always aim to be disappointed, accept your limitations, nice to be a playoff team, be happy with that!
The Jazz had a chance at the Finals last year and they will if they get hot in the playoffs. Mitchell was hurt and he should be hitting his prime.,
The Jazz have much more versatile depth this year. They’re much more athletic and fast compared to last year.
It’ll be interesting to see how quickly the younger guys push for playing time. It only took Donovan a few weeks to get up to starter minutes. Based on the positive feedback so far, Butler will likely eventually get the backup PG spot sooner than later.