The Utah Jazz made a last-minute addition to their roster with the regular season right around the corner by adding center Tony Bradley off waivers earlier this weekend.
The move to bring in Bradley was done by claiming the veteran big man after the New York Knicks recently waived him to meet NBA roster requirements.
Bradley, a former first-round pick out of Utah, would quickly be scooped up by the team that drafted him back in 2018, and now becomes the Jazz's 15th name on their team ahead of opening night.
Now as Bradley has been in the building with the Jazz for a brief amount of time, we were able to hear from head coach Will Hardy on why Utah opted to bring in the veteran big man in the first place.
Will Hardy Addresses the Jazz's Tony Bradley Move
And overall, there were two key takeaways surrounding Hardy's comments on why Bradley was a player they coveted: he not only brings additional size to their frontcourt, but he's also a high-IQ player as well.
"Some extra size. Especially with [Jusuf Nurkic's] injury, having another player who brings a lot of size to the game is helpful," Hardy said of the Tony Bradley signing on Sunday. "Tony's also a super intelligent player, so I think his feel can help us."
"But today was his first day, so we're trying to get him up to speed with this group. I know he has some familiarity with Utah, but this is a different group of guys. I think he was great today, soaking up some of the information and asking questions."
Knowing that the Jazz were going to be without Jusuf Nurkic for the first couple of weeks into the season, it makes sense for the team to make an effort to go out and add another big man to add to their depth chart, even if not the most eye-catching name on the market.
And in the case of Bradley, he's a low-risk addition to the back-end of the roster who's an experienced, high IQ player who's been in a variety of different situations since first leaving the Jazz several years ago, but also brings the coveted size that Hardy is referencing at 6-foot-10 with a 7-foot-5 wing span.
The Jazz are also able to sign him onto a non-guaranteed contract to begin the year because of inheriting his contract from the Knicks via waivers, which comes with extra benefit to them.
Instead of inking him onto a fully guaranteed deal to finish the year out, Utah can have him fill that depth role in the frontcourt until Nurkic is back, and re-evaluate whether or not he's a good fit for that 15th spot on the roster. He’ll be due a per-day rate for whatever extent he's on the Jazz roster, and won't have his contract fully guaranteed unless he sticks on until January.
Until Nurkic is back, expect Bradley to hang onto this Jazz roster to provide another layer of depth at the five, likely behind both Jaxson Hayes––who's projected to be Utah's starting center until Nurkic returns––as well as third-year big man Kyle Flipowski.
Add us as a preferred source on Google