The Utah Jazz roster for next season appears on the cusp of being complete.
All of the Utah Jazz starters will most likely be of the returning variety. Yes, it seems a reasonably safe bet, for now, that Mike Conley, Donovan Mitchell, Royce O’Neale, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Rudy Gobert will run it back as the regular starting five who anchored a league-best 52-20 record this past regular season.
It also looks as if the top two scorers off the bench for the 2020-21 Jazz bunch, Jordan Clarkson and Joe Ingles, should be back as well after finishing No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the NBA Sixth Man of the Year race.
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Together, these seven primary weapons accounted for 83.8 percent of the team’s scoring total in the regular season. And despite the Conley and Mitchell injury woes, those seven then produced 93.7 percent of Utah’s playoff points before their otherwise epic campaign came to a screeching halt with a fourth straight L to the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference Semifinals.
How the rest of the Utah Jazz roster should look when October arrives
NBA rosters must contain 13 to 15 players. Plus, teams may employ up to two two-way men, making 17 the maximum between full-timers and two-ways.
At this juncture, in addition to the seven above, there are seven more who are on contract with the Utah Jazz for next season.
Three of those seven were on the 2020-21 squad:
- Udoka Azubuike
- Elijah Hughes
- Trent Forrest (two-way)
Here are the four new additions:
- Rudy Gay
- Eric Paschall
- Hassan Whiteside
- Jared Butler
While the Jazz could go with the 14 fellas currently on contract and call it a day, the prediction is that the front office will soon toss two more into the mix.
First, judging from growing chatter, Utah might be close to awarding a two-way contract to undrafted Baylor guard MaCio Teague, who’s on an Exhibit 10 deal and has exhibited considerable promise during ongoing Summer League action. The 24-year-old’s consistently razor-sharp efforts on both ends of the floor have helped the Jazz to a 6-0 record.
Meanwhile, as Ben Anderson of KSL Sports recently explained, it might make sense for the franchise to keep 24-year-old wing Miye Oni around for at least the first few months of its 2021-22 journey:
"“Miye Oni has a non-guaranteed contract with the team that won’t become fully guaranteed until early 2022 and served as the team’s 10th man and fifth guard for stretches last season. The team can waive Oni at any point leading up to his January guarantee date and won’t pay the full luxury tax penalty for his contract at season’s end…”"
Additionally, Oni’s presence early on next season would further bolster what looks to be Utah’s clear-cut strong suit: continuity.
So that would make 16 players, including the two two-ways, giving the Jazz the flexibility to comb through the unsigned leftovers for one potential hidden gem after the season tips off in late October.