12:32pm: The extension is official, the Jazz announced on Twitter.
11:43am: Royce O’Neale has agreed to a four-year, $36MM extension with the Jazz, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. The news was confirmed by O’Neale’s agents, Ty Sullivan and Steven Heumann of CAA Sports, who say their client plans to sign the deal today.
The third-year forward is making $1.6MM this season and was headed for restricted free agency this summer. He became a full-time starter this season and is averaging career highs with 6.2 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game while shooting 44.3% from 3-point range. He’s also a defensive specialist who often takes on the opponent’s toughest matchup.
O’Neale went undrafted out of Baylor and played two seasons in Europe before signing with the Jazz in 2017. Wojnarowski notes that he’s the latest success story for a Utah franchise that puts heavy emphasis on player development.
The extension gives the Jazz 14 players under contract for the 2020/21 season, including their first-round pick, tweets Bobby Marks of ESPN. The team is $18MM under the projected tax line and still has a $9.8MM mid-level and a $3.9MM biannual exception to work with. Upcoming free agents are Jordan Clarkson, whom the team has Bird rights on, and Emmanuel Mudiay.
I tend to think the Jazz might be overpaying a bit here, looking at O’Neale production… but it’s likely they would’ve had to pay even more in the summer, given how weak free agency is expected to be. So all in all it’s probably a good move.
This seems like a lot of $ for a guy who’s averaging 6PPG and 5RPG. But I guess with the weak FA market upcoming they risked someone signing him to a bigger offer sheet and thus being forced to pay more to match or risk losing him. Still it seems like quite the gamble to give a guy Avg 6PPG 4/$36M — we shall see if he further develops and kind of grows into that contract or if they’ll really wind up paying a guy $9M/year to average 6 and 5. Hope for their sake he hasn’t reached his ceiling yet.
Clearly you folks don’t understand what O’Neale brings to the team. He is an elite defender and consummate team player.
Intangibles!!
Overpaying players for intangibles is a proven failure in the NBA.
It’s a team friendly contract, but that’s fair as he’s a guy who’s made very little over his career, and is looking at RFA in his late 20’s. He gets security by signing now. Much like Dinwidde and others have done.
There’s nothing intangible about being the best perimeter defender on a team, and having a TS-% in 60’s. 9 mm for a 30 min a game starter on a team with a top 6 record is, by definition, a bargain.
ONeale is not a playmaker but checks all the boxes and is doing it at 30′ pg. I think he could have signed for more. He is durable & improving and will be 30-31 at the end.
Good by Utah but their development program consists of avoiding players that would hamper another. If they are developing anyone, it is mostly very early after acquiring.
Even Gobert was statistically good fulltime at 22 in his second year out of France, even on offense. (I don’t recall a visual)
Con’t- Gobert was 7 foot and in the beginning was a bit too dorky to have an offense.