Utah Jazz extend Slow-Mo’ Joe (and all is right with the world)

Utah Jazz wing and cult hero Joe Ingles reportedly just got another year added on to the end of his deal.

Two days after locking down head coach Quin Snyder for an additional two years beyond the end of his current contract (for a total of four years), the Utah Jazz look to have come to terms on another important extension.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Jazz and Joe Ingles have agreed to add an additional season to the end his deal. As a result, Ingles is now signed through the 2021-22 season, during which he’ll pull in an extra $14 million.

Ingles had signed a four-year, $52 million pact with the Jazz in the summer of 2017. The front-loaded deal will pay him a total of $22.8 million over the next two years before the one-year add-on kicks in.

Although he lost some efficiency as a shooter last season, it’s hard not to define the campaign as a career year for Ingles. Playing in all 82 games for the Jazz, Slow-Mo’ Joe put up 12 points, a team-leading 5.7 assists and four boards per contest. He also ranked in the top 20 across the league in steal percentage and defensive win shares.

Despite a slight downturn in 2018-19, Ingles has undoubtedly established himself as one of the Association’s great 3-point marksmen during his five-year run in the US. His career 3-point percentage of 40.8 is the ninth-best league-wide among active NBA players and ranks 20th all-time.

Finally, he’s now better than former Jazz All-Star Gordon Hayward, if you put any stock in preseason top 100 rankings. That’s legit, right?

Clearly, this is a win for Ingles as a guy who’s on the wrong side of the 30, but I’d say it’s a win for the Jazz and their fan base as well. As much as the Jazz are a team that belongs to Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, it’s hard to deny that they’re kind of Ingles’ team, too.

After entering the league as an afterthought — a hoops vagabond and training camp cut of the LA Clippers who may or may not have only caught on with Utah to be Dante Exum‘s babysitter — Slow-Mo’ Joe is suddenly tied with Gobert for most games played with the franchise, he’s a leader on the floor for the team and probably the best living example of “Jazz DNA.”

Heck, he’s a regular cult hero with his old man’s game, male pattern baldness and penchant for trash talk. And his versatility as a player is as big on the hardwood as the Jingles myth is off it.

The fact that he’ll likely be a Jazzman through ’22 makes it fell like all is right with the world.