SALT LAKE CITY — Joe Ingles has spent the last six weeks at home with his wife, Renae, and 3-year-old twins, Milla and Jacob. If there’s anything Ingles has learned over the past month-and-a-half of chasing around twins and being at home 24/7 it’s that he’s hoping for some career longevity.
“I’m never retiring,” Ingles said with a laugh on Friday during a Zoom conference with local reporters.
All joking aside, the Utah Jazz forward spoke candidly about his career and some of his more immediate plans.
While Ingles noted that he has never put a timeline on his career, and that no decision has been made about how much longer he plans to play in the NBA, he did say that his current contract situation gives him the type of flexibility that will make the eventual decision-making process a little easier.
In October, Ingles agreed to a 1-year, $14 million extension to his existing contract, which keeps him with the Jazz through the 2021-22 season. At the time of the extension agreement, Ingles said, “there’s nowhere else I’d want to be or play.”
That still may be the truth for Ingles as far as his NBA days are concerned, but the Aussie already knows that when he decides to hang up his sneakers, he and the family will be moving back home. It’s not a matter of where, it’s a matter of when and why.
“After this deal I’ll be 35, turning 36,” he said. “When I did sign that extension for another year, I thought it put me at a really good spot age-wise to make a decision on my career of what I wanted to do. Do I want to stay here? The kids will be 5-6 years old then. Do I want to go back [to Australia] and put them in school and leave them in one school?”
The children will be the absolute top priority when the Ingleses decide to make a decision.
For now, Ingles’ plan is to play out his current contract and worry about what comes next once the 2022 season wraps up.
As far as post-career plans, there could be a future for Ingles in broadcasting or something broadcasting-adjacent.
The Jazz veteran has been doing a radio show on 1280 AM for years and said he’s always enjoyed talking and talking to people. That’s one of the reasons why the podcast Ingles recently launched with his wife and UtahJazz.com writer Aaron Falk, Ingles Insight, is something he plans to continue with as long as he can.
During Friday’s Zoom availability with reporters, broadcaster Craig Bolerjack asked Ingles if he would ever be interested in taking the place of Bolerjack’s broadcast partner, color commentator and former Jazzman Matt Harpring.
“You trying to get rid of him?” Ingles asked with a laugh.
“Yeah, why not?” Bolerjack responded in jest.
Again, all jokes aside, Ingles said he’s been asked about his interest in broadcasting and commentating many times, and while he would be interested, he knows he won’t be staying in the States, which makes it unlikely that he’ll be calling Jazz games.
“I think I actually would enjoy doing something like that but we will be living in Australia when I’m done and I don’t think you can do Zoom via color commentating,” he said.”If we wanted to live here and we were going to live here I would definitely steal Harpring’s job, but it’s just not really realistic.”
Though calling games for the NBA isn’t something on the horizon for Ingles, that doesn’t mean that once back in his home country he wouldn’t be interested in doing commentary for the NBL (National Basketball League), the Australian professional league, which has continued to grow and gain interest, especially over the last few years.
We’re still two years out from knowing exactly what Ingles plans on doing, but he has at least a rough outline ready if he decides to retire in 2022, and with his penchant for talking, it’s doubtful that he’ll go into retirement quietly.