Joe Ingles of the Utah Jazz handles the ball in the game against the Toronto Raptors at the Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S., March 9, 2020. /VCG
Joe Ingles of the Utah Jazz had a conference call with Utah Media on Friday and talked a lot about his life and career. From his answer to the questions asked, you could see that the 32-year-old Australian forward makes all of his decisions for his family.
The 2019-20 NBA regular season has been on hold since it was announced that Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the new coronavirus before the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on March 11.
"I think originally, when we were in OKC, I assumed we would be in this two-week quarantine and then we'll be back, like it will be two or three weeks, then we'll be back playing. Obviously, that was very early on and I probably didn't know as much as we all do now with the whole thing that's going on," said Ingles.
Rudy Gobert (L) and Joe Ingles (R) of the Utah Jazz in the game against the Philadelphia 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 2, 2019. /VCG
Since then the league has been trying to bring the games back but as the situation in the U.S. continued to get worse, the return proposals and plans kept being denied one by one.
"Honestly, my personal opinion is every week that we go along, it feels like it's a less and less chance that we're going to (return)," said Ingles.
He also explained why he did not move back to Australia: "The negative is it's going to winter there, which I'm not really excited about; and you actually have to be two weeks quarantined in a hotel if we flew back into Australia right now. Two weeks in this house was hard enough in quarantine, never mind in a hotel room with two nearly four-year-olds. So yeah, we're going to stay here kind of until further notice."
Joe Ingles #2 and Donovan Mitchell #45 of the Utah Jazz communicate with each other in the game against the Miami Heat at the Vivint Smart Home Arena, February 12, 2020. /VCG
Ingles and his wife Renae have two kids, three-year-old twins Milla and Jacob. Though he was not able to play during this period of time, but spending more time with his kids seemed sweeter to him.
"Being with my kids all day can make for long days. But it's been awesome to get up with them every morning and be there to put them to bed. I don't usually get to do that."
There were reports about the NBA considering picking a location, say, Las Vegas, and move all the games there to resume. Ingles did not seem very interested: "It would be extremely hard. That would be basically the longest I've been away from the kids – which I don't know how much I'm willing to do that, as much as I love playing basketball."
Joe Ingles #2 of the Utah Jazz looks for teammate to pass the ball in Game 4 of the Western Conference playoffs against the Houston Rockets at the Vivint Smart Home Arena, April 22, 2019. /VCG
Last summer, Ingles added another year to his contract with the Jazz and he will stay in the team until 2022 when he turns 34. Many are wondering if he will work as a basketball commentator for the team after he retires.
"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 color commentating (via Zoom) very well."