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SALT LAKE CITY — A bit of clarity arrived on Friday in regards to the Utah Jazz roster.
In what was an expected move, the team announced it had signed Danuel House Jr. for the remainder of the season.
House had impressed during his run of three straight 10-day deals with Utah where he averaged 8.3 points, 2.6 rebounds and shot 41.7% from 3-point range. He made a good final impression, too, scoring 21 points in his last game before entering COVID-19 protocols.
His final 10-day contract expired last Sunday. The delay was simple: Utah wanted to wait until after the trade deadline in order to maintain more flexibility. Once the deadline passed and the team was still two roster spots short, they called up House.
"It made sense," Jazz general manager Justin Zanik said. "He's done well with his opportunity and we like to see it continue. So I'm excited to add him."
House is a candidate to replace at least some of the minutes that were once played by Joe Ingles. He's the kind of long wing the Jazz have been lacking on the defensive side, and he can make some shots, too.
"He's a young veteran, he's right in the middle of his career and he stayed ready," Zanik said. "His activity level, his ability to defend, his ability to make a shot — we wanted to give him a shot. And he has integrated seamlessly within this group, and got the confidence of his teammates."
House is 28 years old and has major playoff experience during his time in Houston — where he played in a similar spaced offense as the Jazz run. All of those things made it a pretty easy call to bring him back for the remainder of the year.
With his signing, the Jazz are now league compliant (teams can't have more than one roster spot open for longer than two weeks). That doesn't mean they are done, though.
Utah's never been much of a player on the buyout market, but they have left some flexibility just in case something comes along in the coming weeks.
There could be some interesting names available: Garry Harris, Paul Millsap, Robin Lopez, among others.
That flexibility is also one of the reasons the Jazz haven't converted Trent Forrest's two-way contract to a standard contract quite yet.
And they aren't in any rush to do so, either.
"What we will do is continue to take this time throughout the rest of the regular season and make sure that we are optimized for the playoffs," Zanik said when asked about converting Forrest's deal.
Forrest has been a revelation of late. In his last 10 games, he's averaged 8.5 points and 3.0 assists in nearly 23 minutes. He's also been one of Utah's best perimeter defenders during that stretch. Now, he can't shoot (he's at 20% from 3-point range on the season), so he might prove difficult to play in the playoffs. But if Quin Snyder is trusting him to play over 20 minutes a night right now, then it would be at least beneficial to have Forrest on the bench in the postseason.
In the end, that's likely to happen. There's just no punishment in waiting to convert the contract. In previous seasons, two-way players were limited to 50 games. This season, in order to help with COVID-19 outbreaks, that limitation has been lifted. And there's an added bonus, too. Once a two-way player has been active for 50 games, he'll be paid as if he was on a league minimum contract.
"Trent's making an NBA minimum for every game that he plays going forward — he's on an NBA minimum, converted or not," Zanik said.
Keeping Forrest on a two-way isn't the only way to keep a roster spot open. The Jazz could, for example, waive newly acquired Juancho Hernangomez in order to open up a spot. But for now, with him not being penalized, money wise, it's the simplest option.
