One of the strangest acquisitions for the Utah Jazz in quite sometime is no longer on the team.
The Athletic’s Tony Jones first reported, and the Jazz officially announced a short time later, that Matt Thomas has been waived.
Thomas was acquired at the trade deadline on March 26 from the Toronto Raptors in exchange for a second-round pick. At the time, the trade was a confusing one, as Thomas’ biggest strength is his shooting, but the Jazz already had that in spades on their roster.
Essentially, the Jazz gave up a second-round draft pick — a valuable asset for teams with high payrolls like the Jazz — for someone who was going to have a very hard time getting any minutes.
The rationale that made the most sense was that the Jazz were getting a shooter on the roster in case things changed in the future and they needed a scorer on the cheap, but Thomas wound up playing in just 22 games for the Jazz and scored just 68 points.
While with the Jazz, Thomas shot just 21.5% from 3-point range. Before joining the Jazz, Thomas had shot 45.7% from deep, so the one reason the Jazz could use to justify having him on the roster didn’t materialize.
Thomas had one more year remaining on his contract, which would have become guaranteed on Aug. 3 had he not been waived. In addition to salary, the move opens up a roster spot for the Jazz as they begin the process of tweaking their roster this summer.