THURSDAY, 5:05pm: Oram hears that the Jazz waived McNeal because he received a big contract to play overseas (Twitter link).
WEDNESDAY, 5:40pm: The Jazz have announced they have waived point guard Jerel McNeal, tweets Bill Oram of the Salt Lake Tribune. As Oram indicated, McNeal signed two 10-day contracts with the Jazz last year and played with the team in the Orlando Summer League. McNeal, a Marquette product, has never actually appeared in an NBA game despite spending time on league rosters over the past couple of seasons.
As our Luke Adams wrote earlier this month, McNeal's contract with Utah would have guaranteed him at least $884,293 this season if he was not waived on or before October 31st. His release comes one day after the Jazz inked fellow point guard Scott Machado yesterday.
Because the move comes so close to the start of training camp, Steve Luhm of the Tribune can't help but wonder if the Machado signing led to McNeal and his agent requesting his release (Twitter links). However, David Locke of Locked on Jazz tweets that it may have been the late-July addition of Ian Clark that spelled the end for McNeal, since the guards are so similar. Along with Machado and Clark, the Jazz will now have Trey Burke, John Lucas and Alec Burks all capable of running the point in camp.
The Jazz currently have 12 guaranteed contracts on their roster, along with a partially guaranteed deal for Clark.
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