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SALT LAKE CITY — Last summer, cheers were heard from the Utah Jazz war room after Jared Butler fell to them in the second round.
A little over a year later, Butler was waived from the team.
The Jazz got closer to finalizing their regular season roster on Saturday, waiving both Butler and veteran big man Cody Zeller to trim their roster to the league-maximum 15 players.
Butler averaged 3.8 points and 1.5 assists in 42 games as a rookie. Zeller was only on a training camp deal.
Despite the team's initial excitement about Butler's talent, the young guard never managed to find a spot in Quin Snyder's rotation during his first season. Sure, some of that was being on a veteran-heavy squad, but Butler also lost time to second-year pro Trent Forrest, who was only on a two-way deal with the Jazz.
Butler then struggled in Summer League in July, failing to distance himself from players who, for the most part, weren't going to be in the NBA.
The young guard appeared to rebound during preseason, however. He played in three preseason games and averaged 7.7 points and 3.3 assists while shooting 50% from 3-point range.
That progress made Saturday's announcement a bit of a surprise.
Butler had received more playing time during the preseason than fellow young guard Leandro Bolmaro. Meanwhile, Udoka Azubuike hasn't yet consistently shown he's ready for NBA minutes — with the caveat that he's had two season-ending injuries since being drafted in the first round by Utah in 2021.
The Jazz are guard heavy, though, so the lack of positional versatility might have put Butler behind the sticks when it came to making the team.
"This is the worst part of the job for sure," Jazz coach Will Hardy said following Utah's loss to Dallas Friday night. "Because we have a lot of great guys here at training camp and we have a lot of capable players; a lot of guys that are roster NBA players, so we have some tough decisions to make."
Those hard decisions have now been made.
Utah's current roster
- Ochai Agbaji
- Nikeil Alexander-Walker
- Udoka Azubuike
- Malik Beasley
- Leandro Bolmaro
- Jordan Clarkson
- Mike Conley
- Simone Fontecchio
- Rudy Gay
- Talen Horton-Tucker
- Johnny Juzang (two-way)
- Walker Kessler
- Lauri Markkanen
- Kelly Olynyk
- Micah Potter (two-way)
- Collin Sexton
- Jarred Vanderbilt
