With Summer League over, the Utah Jazz summer is now in full force

Well summer has officially arrived. That’s great if you’re a student or a school teacher, but not so much if you’re a Utah Jazz fan. The Summer League is officially over for the Jazz after their loss to the Memphis Grizzlies down in Las Vegas. With Tony Bradley and Grayson Allen not even playing anymore, there wasn’t a whole lot left to watch anyways I guess.

Speaking of summer league, there was an interesting article on SI.com recently about the costs of summer league to NBA teams. It even includes some quotes from Jazz summer league legend Jack Cooley:

“If you had a chance to increase the percentage that you get your dream job, and all you have to do is take a paid vacation to Las Vegas, stay in a five-star hotel, and play the game you love, you’re telling me you wouldn’t do that?” Cooley says. “The economics get pretty nutty.”

Teams fly players from virtually anywhere in the world to their practice facilities for minicamp... Cooley was vacationing in Honolulu with his wife when he got a phone call from his agent, learning that the Suns had extended an invitation. He flew directly from Hawaii to Phoenix, where the Suns provided two team meals a day and housed their 14-player roster in a hotel. Players are subesquently flown from minicamps to Las Vegas, and are granted a return ticket following Summer League to any destination in the country, often to a city that launches a vacation...

Players receive a total of $1,500 in per diem during the 12-day league... As Cooley mentions, each team is housed within luxurious hotels and every player is granted his own room, typically priced at $115 per weeknight and $210 on weekend evenings. It’s standard practice to provide two team meals per day, breakfast and lunch can bookend morning practices and shootarounds. One night this week, the Suns took their entire roster and staff to Hibachi Grill, where Cooley says each member dined on $100 worth of food. When the Bulls won the Las Vegas championship in 2016, Cooley ordered a $200 off-the-menu steak at STK during the team’s fully-expensed victory dinner.

One team equipment manager says his club paid $6,100 for game uniforms and roughly $5,000 on player practice gear. As each item is printed with the players’ last names, teams gift the threads to players following Summer League. Oddly enough, Nike required equipment managers to file orders for this July’s Summer League all the way back in January 2017. When you divide the composite cost of travel, meals, per diem, and apparel by each team’s 14 roster spots, one Summer League invite costs an NBA team roughly $6,500. “There’s a lot of things you get,” Cooley says.

Sounds like a pretty sweet temp job if you ask me! I’d never really considered the costs of putting together a summer league team. That price is certainly worth it to the Utah Jazz, especially in recent years. Royce O’Neale found his way onto not just the roster but the starting lineup in the playoffs. Georges Niang was the summer league standout this year, so it will be fun to see how he develops in the coming years.

Donovan Mitchell is in the running for yet another award. He was nominated for the ESPY “Best Breakthrough Athlete” and is certainly deserving. This highlight and introduction video brought back all the feels

This week in Fan Posts:

mulrich tries to predict the Western Conference for 2018-2019

This is still a little premature since free agency isn’t finished but most of the big free agents are signed.

I tried to list roster changes for each team including 1st round draft picks (but not second). I’ll try to update the list as players sign with new teams.

I also tried guessing about each team’s 2018/19 outlook and record...

And Jazz Beast talks about Karl Malone’s interview in Las Vegas, and his thoughts about the Golden State Warriors haters

Nigel Williams-Goss has continued having an interesting and honestly great year over in Europe. I really hope he’s able to make it here for camp and preseason, because I think he could still have a role as a 2nd or 3rd point guard in the future.

NBC Sports recently had an article about him and his goals to make it to the NBA.

There may not be a better example of just how hard it is to sign one of the 510 available NBA contracts than Williams-Goss.

His amateur career was as decorated as anyone in recent memory... Williams-Goss was named a McDonald’s All-American and played in the Jordan Brand All-American game. He won a gold medal with USA Basketball playing for the U19s. He spent two all-Pac-12 seasons at Washington before transferring to Gonzaga, where he led the Zags to a nearly-undefeated regular season, a No. 1 ranking for the majority of the year and a trip to the national title game. He was named a first-team All-American for his troubles, becoming one of just five players in Division I history to be named an academic All-American and a first-team All-American.

After that national title game loss... Williams-Goss left school with a year of eligibility still on the table. He was selected by the Utah Jazz with the 55th pick.

His lifelong dream of hearing his name called during the NBA draft had come true. The reward was being forced to fight for a roster spot on a team with three established NBA point guards and Donovan Mitchell, a lottery pick that turned into the best player in the draft class.

So after playing in the NBA summer league, Williams-Goss was faced with a decision: Accept an invite to training camp, where the Jazz had one roster spot available and four point guards on the roster, or get his passport ready. He met face-to-face with Lindsay and talked through all of his options, and all parties agreed that it was best to head to Europe.

“In my first year as a professional, it was important that I continue to develop and further my growth,” Williams-Goss said.

To do that, he needed to play.

Williams-Goss ended up having a great year over in Europe and is a pretty popular name over there for teams looking to add talent. Raul Neto resigned with Utah, so there likely isn’t a spot for Nigel on Utah’s roster again this year, but I’ll be interested to see how things look in camp and next season for the Gonzaga guard.

This version of the Utah Jazz continue to get more exciting and more recognition. Now some national guys are even admitting how excited they are to watch the Jazz play next season.

This tweet also prompted a pretty fun response from a fan with a video of Grayson Allen from high school.

I think I touched the rim in high school... on one of those Little Tikes hoops. So Allen’s dunk is ok I guess.