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NBA news guru Adrian Wojnarowski reports that the Utah Jazz are *finally* *FINALLY* going to call up a player from their own D-League affiliate, the Idaho Stampede. That player is none other than Jack Cooley.
The Utah Jazz are signing the Idaho Stampede's Jack Cooley to a 10-day contract, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) February 23, 2015
Jack, you may remember worked out for the Utah Jazz TWICE back before the 2013 NBA Draft. He then was a part of the Utah Jazz free agent mini camp the next season, and then was a part of our team for training camp (but not summer league). The bigs the team used there were Rudy Gobert, Brock Motum, Erik Murphy, Greg Somogyi, Jason Washburn, and Malcolm Thomas. The 6'9 Cooley went undrafted in 2013, played a year for Trabzonspor in Turkey, and then after a semi-positive review with the Jazz, signed on with their affiliate the Idaho Stampede this year.
Cooley was with Idaho to specifically work on his range and see if he could be a stretch big. He played four years at Notre Dame where he shot 1/2 from downtown in over 2,435 minutes of action. So like Enes Kanter he didn't shoot threes and is now being asked to expand his range. With the Stamps he has played in only 16 games (was saddled by injuries early on) and has managed to go 3/17 from downtown. Our Stretch big Princess is in another castle.
To his credit, in the D-League he is averaging 15.5 ppg, 10.6 rpg, and 1.4 bpg while shooting a very healthy 55.2 FG% while getting to the free throw line 5.0 times. He's a bad version of Kanter, who blocks more shots and is shorter. The 23 year old Evanston, Illinois native is not likely to demand to be traded. So at least we have that going for us.
Also, yes, this is the first time the Jazz are calling up a player (not currently on a Jazz contract) from their NBA-DL affiliate to play for them. Ever. The previous high score was a few guys getting training camp invites, like Kevin Kruger. Maybe Cooley can stay?