Jazz's Ingles will use portion of salary to help Utah's underprivileged

Joe Ingles played himself into a rich four-year, $52-million contract with the Utah Jazz, and with his newfound wealth, the 29-year-old wants to give back to the community.

"We (he and his wife) are going to do a lot of stuff with underprivileged children and families," Ingles told The Daily Telegraph's Matt Logue. "I mean, we don’t need that much money. Nobody in the world needs that much money.

"So we’ll spend a lot of time helping out kids and families that need the help. We’ll start in Utah because we are going to be there in a few months, but then we’ll do some things in Australia."

Ingles added that the most pleasure he gets out of his new deal to remain in Salt Lake City is knowing that his twins, Milla and Jacob, will be financially secure. The stability that comes with knowing he'll have an NBA gig for the next four years is also extremely gratifying.

"It still hasn’t sunk in," he said. "I remember reading it (the contract) somewhere and I never thought I would be in a situation like this.

"I mean, I’m not going to change. I am who I am. I’m about to turn 30 now and I’ve been like that my whole life. People looking from the outside might think that things will change because I’ll have access to a lot more money, but it won’t happen."

In his first three seasons with the Jazz, Ingles totaled just over $5 million in salary. In 2016-17, the 6-foot-8 Aussie averaged career highs across the board in points (7.1), field-goal percentage (45.2), rebounds (3.2), assists (2.7), and steals (1.2) in 82 games.