As the regular season gets nearer, the Utah Jazz are faced with a difficult decision regarding who to keep on the roster: Joel Bolomboy or Royce O’Neale.
Heading into the preseason, the Utah Jazz roster was all but set in stone. While they have 19 players available during the preseason, that number must be trimmed down to 15 by the start of the season. Leaving the team with some difficult decisions to make.
At the start of the preseason, 13 of those 19 players were essentially set in stone to make the roster. During Friday’s match-up with the Phoenix Suns, TJ Warren collided with Dante Exum. Tony Jones reported that he separated his left shoulder on the play, and suffered ligament damage. Based on the injury, it is likely Exum will miss 4-6 months, and unless the Jazz need him for a run to the playoffs, he may miss the entire season.
Utah Jazz: Dante Exum suffers separated shoulder, ligament damage https://t.co/plE4PXj4T5 pic.twitter.com/nPIHOhNNGI
— The J-Notes (@TheJNotes) October 7, 2017
With Exum’s injury, it is almost guaranteed that Raul Neto will be back on the Jazz this season. Also included on the preseason roster are Nate Wolters and Eric Griffin. They are under the new two-way contracts to play for the Jazz and Utah’s G-League affiliate, the Salt Lake City Stars.
Taylor Braun has already been cut, and I think we can confidently cross Naz Mitrou-Long off the list of candidates. With that, we have two players fighting for the final roster spot.
Joel Bolomboy and Royce O’Neale.
Both are capable players who can make a solid argument to be on this team. We’ll go over the argument for each, and then I’ll let you know my prediction for who gets the final spot.