Here’s the Deseret News with a summary of the key Utah Jazz roster moves entering and during this past season:
Entering the 2019-2020 season, one of the narratives surrounding the Utah Jazz was the notion that they would have good depth after signing players such as Jeff Green and Ed Davis in free agency.
That proved to not be the case, as Green and Davis were an utter failure. Additionally, a third offseason signee, Emmanuel Mudiay, had a few good moments but nothing great and returnee Dante Exum was traded at Christmastime after once again not being impactful because of injury.
Before the Exum trade, which brought Jordan Clarkson to Utah from the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Jazz bench was 29th among 30 teams in points per game and routinely gave up leads the starting unit had built. Clarkson proved to be a huge boost, and Utah was 19th in bench scoring after his arrival through the end of the season. Still not wonderful, but a huge improvement.
The good news for the Jazz was that the unit of Donovan Mitchell, Joe Ingles, Royce O’Neale, Bojan Bogdanovic and Rudy Gobert was arguably the best 5-man unit in the entire league with a net rating of 13.7 in 570 minutes, and the one replacing Ingles with Mike Conley wasn’t too far behind, with a net rating of 9.7 in 381 minutes.
Conley reportedly has an early termination option for his contract this offseason, but considering his salary next season for the Jazz would be over $34 million, there’s a good chance he’ll elect to stick with the team in 2020-21.
Jordan Clarkson is a free agent this offseason. He definitely helped the Jazz this year, and they’d be smart to try to bring him back — if salary demands match up, of course.
