If the Utah Jazz are looking to add more size to bolster their frontcourt, there are three available players in particular that they may want to consider.
Let’s not sugarcoat it, the Utah Jazz have a lot of issues right now. And there’s simply no easy fix for it, or one quick move they can make. They need to get this roster clicking, rediscover their offense and get their focus back on defense if they’re going to amount to anything this year.
Among the many issues they have is a definite lack of size down low. When they traded away Derrick Favors to create space for Bojan Bogdanovic and the prolific offense he would bring, the front office knew full well this could be an issue. But I have a feeling even they have been surprised at how bad things have been. Jeff Green has been hit-and-miss (and that’s being kind) on defense, Ed Davis has been over-powered, Tony Bradley is still a project, and no one, not even Royce O’Neale or Bojan Bogdanovic, has been able to help containing big opposing power forwards.
The towering Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers all just crushed the Jazz to oblivion, exposing one of the many weaknesses they have. As such, it might be in their best interest to bring in some reinforcements from outside their ranks to increase their size down low.
The bad news is that the Jazz don’t really have the players or assets to pull off a meaningful trade, so they’ll likely be limited instead to whatever they can find in the buyout or yet-to-be-signed free agent market. Obviously, if guys aren’t on a roster right now, there’s a reason for that, so don’t expect the options to be pretty.
Nevertheless, there are three guys in particular that jump out to me as players that could be able to help bring size and toughness to the Jazz to help them match up against some of the giant teams that have given them matchup trouble.
Before I go through them, let me give one disclaimer. By no means are any of these guys going to instantly fix Utah’s issues. Most of them won’t even have an impact on the problems that are plaguing them most. However, if the Jazz are able to turn things around organically and get back to the potential we believed them to have coming into the year, then (and only then) could it be possible that adding one of these three could also give the Jazz some extra helpful size that could make them better than they’d otherwise be.
With that said, let’s take a look at three available guys that the Jazz should consider adding as a mid-season free agent in place of one of their end of the bench guys such as Juwan Morgan or Nigel Williams-Goss.