Northwest Notes: Jazz, Bogdanovic, Roberson, Blazers

For the Jazz, adjusting to the NBA’s campus in Orlando was especially difficult during the first two days of the trip, Tony Jones of The Athletic details. 

Like other teams, each player and staff member in Utah’s traveling party had to quarantine for the first 48 hours once they arrived. The sudden adjustment to being isolated was an eye-opener for many within the franchise.

“Those first 48 hours sucked,” Joe Ingles said with a chuckle. “The window of the room was sealed shut, so I couldn’t open it. So I fear over the course of some months, the room is going to get a little stanky.”

Coaches and staff members were no exception to this, naturally, with head coach Quin Snyder offering his perspective on the first 48 hours of his journey.

“We had a lot of time to ourselves,” Snyder said. “It was a lot of time to think. I had to be careful to not overthink.”

Utah is entering the resumed season with the fourth-best record in the Western Conference at 41-23, trailing the No. 3 seed Nuggets by 1.5 games and the No. 2 seed Clippers by three games.

Here are some other notes out of the Northwest Division tonight:

• The Jazz are also adjusting to life without Bojan Bogdanovic in Orlando, Ryan McDonald of The Deseret News writes. Bogdanovic is slated to miss the rest of the season after undergoing wrist surgery in May, averaging 20.2 points in 63 games on the year. “Missing Bojan, having to adjust the way we play, our style, I think Coach is adapting in a way that helps us out to play more freely but still have a lot of structure and the way he wants us to play,” Royce O’Neale said.
• Thunder forward Andre Roberson joined the team in practice on Friday for the first time in nearly a year, Royce Young of ESPN writes. Roberson, who last saw NBA action over two years ago, first sustained a ruptured patellar tendon in January of 2018. He suffered a setback later in the year that required additional surgery, then experienced another setback six weeks later by sustaining an avulsion fracture in his knee. “He looked really, really good in terms of the way he was moving,” head coach Billy Donovan said. “It was great to see him out there. I was really happy for him. But like we’ve talked about in the past, we’ll see how he can continue to build up and develop here over the next week, but he was out there today and he participated in everything.”
• The Trail Blazers’ big men looked good in their returns to the court last week, Jason Quick of The Athletic writes. Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins have both healed from their respective injuries, with Portland now sporting three seven-foot players when including Hassan Whiteside. “They both looked like the way we remembered them,” coach Terry Stotts said. “I told Nurk that — he’s the Nurk I remember playing at both ends of the floor. He made some really good passes, good rebounds. And Zach was full of energy. You couldn’t tell either one of them missed time. It was very encouraging.”