Price happy to be in Utah

Two summers ago, when UVSC guard Ronnie Price went undrafted, the Utah Jazz made a quick bid to get him, said senior VP of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor.

"The second after the 60th pick in the draft, we were on the phone with both he and his agent talking to him about coming. That's the first and only time we've ever done that," O'Connor said Wednesday after finally getting his man.

Sacramento also invited Price to its summer league workouts that year, and Price was having a hard time deciding between the two possibilities, sitting in his home near Houston on that 2005 draft night with his family nearby and still being stung over not getting drafted.

"This is a true story," Price said Wednesday after being introduced to the Utah media as the newest Jazzman at the Zion's Bank Basketball Center. "My grandmother — who knows nothing about the NBA, names of teams or anything — she told me, 'I think you're supposed to be in Sacramento,' and she had no idea that Sacramento was a team that I was talking to — had no idea.

"When she did that, she answered my prayers and my thoughts. My grandmother just came out of nowhere and said, 'I think you're going to be in Sacramento.' That was the weirdest thing," Price said, following her premonition and choosing the Kings over the Jazz.

"But it worked out," the 6-foot-2 Price added, noting he got hurt and didn't play throughout the summer league then but days after the league ended, the Kings offered him a two-year contract. "There probably wasn't another guy in the NBA that was an undrafted free agent that got a two-year contract."

And it worked out even after that two-year deal was up and the Kings decided a few weeks ago to rescind their qualifying offer to the previously restricted free agent, which meant the Jazz could sign Price as a free agent and bring him back to his second home again, which is what happened over the past six days.

"I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and I believe that two years with Sacramento was a chance for me to get better as a player and learn the NBA," Price said, "and now that I've had those two years of growing as a player, now I'm back where I started.

"The three years that I played college out here, I wouldn't take those three years back for anything. The community, the people, just the fans, the support that I received and UVSC players received while we were in college was amazing.

"I'm just excited to be back around the Utah community and get that support again," said Price, who wore No. 7 while with Sacramento because he was a big Pete Maravich fan from the time he was 6.