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No Comments [ Add Comment ]Looking for a few good men
By Jim BurtonJazz brass insists team will take best available
SALT LAKE CITY -- Evaluating talent in the NBA -- or any sports league for that matter -- is three parts good work and one part good luck.
Or is it three parts good luck, one part good work?
Maybe it's a little closer to half and half.
Whatever the case -- or the cliché -- the Utah Jazz braintrust will go into tonight's annual NBA draft having done more homework than a seventh grader with mononucleosis.
Of course they'll also have their fingers crossed too, just in case all that homework didn't pay off.
Unlike two years ago, when the Jazz moved up from No. 6 to No. 3 expressly to land point guard Deron Williams, this year's draft figures to be quite a bit different.
Coming off their best season in nearly a decade, the Jazz have a different task ahead of them. This time, they'll draft with the No. 25 pick and again at No. 55 in the second round.
In terms of sheer numbers, finding the third-best player available is much easier than finding the 25th best player.
Over the past couple of weeks, Jazz senior vice president Kevin O'Connor and his people have worked out more than 40 potential draftees and interviewed even more.
Of those 40-plus players, maybe five or six are legitimate candidates to be taken with the No. 25 pick. Many more, however, will be considered with the No. 55 pick.
The question is, what will the Jazz do with their first-round pick? Who will they take?
"At 25, we've talked about taking the best player available," said O'Connor, surprising absolutely no one.
"You know, if it was (the No. 3 or 4 pick) and it was the difference between a point guard and a big guy, and it was close, you'd know we'd take the big guy," O'Connor said. "But that's not the case (this season). We'll take the best player available."
Of course finding the best available player is easier said than done.
"One of the things that happens is that some guys that could be available at 25, don't think they will be, so it's difficult to get them in," O'Connor said. "I probably have 42 guys who think they're going in the first 25, so we'll have to deal with that. That's OK, that's part of it."
Provided the Jazz don't move up in the first round -- or move completely out of it -- there are a couple of possibilities with the No. 25 pick.
They can, as O'Connor says, draft the best available player, regardless of position (they worked out a couple of point guards on Wednesday, and point guard is definitely not a must-have position these days). Or, they can target a needed position and take the best available player at that particular position.
Currently, the two positions on Utah's wish list is shooting guard and center.
O'Connor cautions that drafting for need doesn't always mean drafting for a specific position.
"When you talk about needing a shooting guard, I think we could use another shooter; (but) it doesn't just have to be a shooting guard," he said. "It could be a (small forward), it could be a (point guard), it could be a (power forward)."
In terms of drafting a shooter in the first round, it seems clear the Jazz like Rice University senior Morris Almond, considered by many to be the best pure shooter in the draft.
And in terms of a big man, they seem to like Colorado State's Jason Smith.
The trouble is, Smith is expected to go long before the No. 25 pick; and Almond could go anywhere from No. 17 to No. 26.
Rest assured, if their top choices are gone before the No. 25 pick rolls around, the Jazz will be prepared to go to another option.
"That's our responsibility," O'Connor said. "If you look at statistics and all that other stuff about guys taken 25-30 in the draft, you'll find some that have made it and some that haven't. More haven't than have, but our responsibility is to try to find a player that can, and especially down later in the draft."
And that player is ...
"I think we'll take the best player available," said O'Connor, knowing full well he sounds like a broken record. "We keep saying that, but we've done that every year."
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