10:37pm: Both players have indeed been waived, the team has officially announced.
4:41pm: The Jazz have waived Dahntay Jones and Jack Cooley, Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders reports (Twitter link). The team has yet to make an official announcement, but these moves would reduce Utah’s preseason roster count to 15 players, which is the regular season maximum. Jones was in camp on a non-guaranteed minimum salary deal, but Cooley’s arrangement came with a partial guarantee for $65K, so he won’t walk away empty-handed. Cooley is likely headed to the NBA D-League, notes Pincus.
The 6’9″ Cooley went undrafted following his senior year at Notre Dame in 2013, but performed well in summer league action that year. Still, he didn’t catch on with an NBA team for camp or the regular season. Instead, the big man headed overseas, averaging 12.6 points and 6.9 rebounds in 22.9 minutes per game in Turkey.
Jones spent last season out of the NBA, which was the first time he went without a deal in the league since he went 20th overall in the 2003 draft. Jones’ numbers in 589 career games are 5.6 PPG, 1.8 RPG, and 0.9 APG. His career slash line is .441/.334/.751. Jones doesn’t seem like a candidate for the D-League, but he probably hopes to catch on with another team prior to the regular season. He could also try sign with a team on a 10-day contract later in the season.