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Grayson Allen, from Duke, participates in the NBA draft basketball combine Thursday, May 17, 2018, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) AP
SALT LAKE CITY — Members of the Utah Jazz front office will be in the Windy City this week to check out the 2019 NBA draft combine.
Sixty-six hopefuls will begin the first step of the draft process at Quest Multisport in Chicago on Thursday and Friday.
The Jazz currently hold the 23rd and 53rd picks of the draft, set for Thursday, June 20 in New York.
Gonzaga's Brandon Clarke, Tennessee's Grant Williams, North Carolina's Cameron Johnson, Wake Forest's Jaylen Hoard, Iowa State's Talen Horton-Tucker, Indiana's Romeo Langford and North Carolina's Nassir Little have been some potential targets listed across various national mock drafts, and will all be in attendance.
Last year, the Jazz selected former Duke star Grayson Allen with the 21st overall pick, then immediately traded their 52nd pick of the second round for cash considerations to Houston — which ended up being Vincent Edwards of Purdue, who earned a two-way contract.
Allen also spent time back and forth in the G League with the Salt Lake City Stars and averaged 5.6 points in 10.9 minutes while appearing in 38 Jazz games as a rookie. His combine numbers weren't the most impressive last summer in Chicago, but he did test the best among guards in lane agility drills while tying for third-best for max vertical leap at 40.5 inches.
Throughout this week's combine, there will also be five-on-five games as well as strength, agility and shooting drills like always.
The Jazz recently made changes to their front office by promoting former assistant general manager Justin Zanik to lead GM while Dennis Lindsey moved to executive vice president of basketball operations.
Utah has already held three pre-draft workouts at the practice facility ahead of the combine with Jazz Vice President of Player Personnel Walt Perrin closely scouting the action.
"Same thought process," Perrin said. "Hopefully, I'll have about the same number of workouts this year as we had last year but it all depends on my conversations with the agents."
Of those 18 participants from the three Jazz sessions, Utah State's Neemias Queta and Kansas' Devon Dotson are the only two that will also be at the combine. Perrin says the goals and objectives for pre-draft workouts are tweaked every year in terms of what they may want to see out of prospects, and depending on who is in the facility, but they will be conducting interviews and evaluating talent in Chicago, too, before bringing in more players to Utah.
"It's going to be a little different as we go forward because it's easier to arrange workouts if you've got one central person who's used to the process," Perrin said.
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