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Grade The Jazz's Draft

Saint Cy of JFC

Saint Cy of JFC

Well-Known Member
2022 Award Winner
I'm going with B-

I don't love Udoka at 27, but he is huge and allows the Jazz to play 48 minutes with a defensive intimidator. I think he will be fun to watch and is a guy who will add toughness. Also he is going to be ready from Day 1 I would assume. He will give the Jazzs 2nd unit a huge lob threat and someone who can maybe eat vs smaller backups.

I love what the Jazz did with 38. Using it to get off Bradley was great. We never have to watch Bradley again! This was a move I was anticipating and hoping for.

Trading back into the draft was also a great move. I'm upset they didn't take my guy Woodard, but I do like Hughes. I'm not a huge fan, but some people I follow are in love with him. He has serious offensive game and his jumper is buttery. The Jazz don't have any bucket getting wings (Bogey a strict 4 to me with his age) so I think I get going him over Woodard.

The Jazz took a draft lower in potential to address team needs with upperclassmen. Never a popular route, but I get it. Udoka will be getting rotation minutes next year and Hughes may as well by the end of the year.
 
100% CY. I don't know if Udoka ever becomes starter material, but if he plays those increasing minutes Gobert isn't on the floor with the same intensity it will provide some consistency we never saw with Bradley. I also don't see Udoka getting stuffed under the net on offense. For where we drafted, I think Hughes has promise but will just be a nice bonus if he ends up making the team and contributing.
 
Doke has the highest standing vertical in combine history as 37". He is a beast. But he is very injury prone, and he will be exposed by shooting big men and has no range. He has good footwork, and will allow the Jazz to run consistent sets with starter and bench players. He plays smart and I think he will be a good passer.

I have a feeling injuries will plague this guys career. Bad wrist injuries in two different seasons, but at least no broken feet like Borchardt. He will be a good defensive traditional center, and hopefully his inside d makes up for poor perimeter d. A great upgrade from Bradley for sure. I give a C- because of the injury history. Dude was really only healthy one year in College. If he stays healthy, which I doubt, I'd give a B-.

Hughes has good shooting form, but great shooting balance. Whether shooting stationary or off the dribble, he rises up with similar balanced form.

However, he made a lot of horrible decisions and took a lot of ill advised shots, low bbiq. Hopefully he can lose the chucker mentality quick.

In classic Jazz form, another pick with poor rim finishing percentages. He could be a great shooter in this league, but he'll have to be if he wants to stay in the league. If you watched him last year, you would have noticed a wrap on his shooting hand most of the year. It didn't visibly seem to bother him when I saw him play, but it may have hurt his percentages. What I noticed this last year when he took the leading role, is he has trouble creating good space. May not be an issue if he can get open shots on rotation.

Better prospects still on the board. C+.
 
C-


I don't hate the picks but getting absolutely fleeced by NYK is inexcusable. As the poster said above Udoka could actually be nice if we can spell Gobert and not take a huge ding since our bench is and most likely still will be flat out garbage.

Hughes has promise but so did our picks last year and they were benched behind Niang and his 15 minutes per game. It'll be the same thing with Hughes.
 
Looks like a D+ type of draft to me.

Positives:
I think Azubuike will be a good Gobert backup, and hopefully almost immediately
We bought back into the second round

Negatives
Got worked by NYK
Sounds like we overdrafted Azubuike
Even if he works out Azubuike is an 8th man on our squad, we need to aim higher than that when we come in with #23
Have a tough time seeing Hughes cracking the rotation, doesn't look meaningfully better than Tucker/Oni and they couldn't do it as rookies
Didn't address the need for a defensive forward/big wing
 
Eminence said:
Looks like a D+ type of draft to me.

Positives:
I think Azubuike will be a good Gobert backup, and hopefully almost immediately
We bought back into the second round

Negatives
Got worked by NYK
Sounds like we overdrafted Azubuike
Even if he works out Azubuike is an 8th man on our squad, we need to aim higher than that when we come in with #23
Have a tough time seeing Hughes cracking the rotation, doesn't look meaningfully better than Tucker/Oni and they couldn't do it as rookies
Didn't address the need for a defensive forward/big wing
Click to expand...
Wait, werent you high on Udoka?

You also have to list trading Tony Bradley as a huge W.

And Hughes is very different from anyone wing we have on the roster. Not really comparable to Tucker/Oni. He's a refined scorer. Tucker is just an athlete who pressures the rim and Oni is a 3&D who can't create a bucket.
 
And I dont get the crying over the Knicks turning 23 into 25 and 33 instead of 27 and 38.

Utah made a trade ahead of time instead of risking it on the clock. It's really not a big deal and Utah didnt draft the guy I wanted when they could have, so them trading up wouldnt have changed anything.
 
Well I were very disappointed about this draft at first glance, but later analyzing better our moves I realized that what we have done a fair job.
Considering that:
  • We have moved away Tony who was ,I'm sad to say, simply unplayable becouse of his lack of both offensive and defensive effects.
  • We have selected Udoka to replace him so hopefully we'll see something better than last year, wahenever Rudy has to take a breath (we have to give Udoka significant minutes though)
  • Drafted Hughes who seems to me a talented dude with some interesting skills.
Let's see...anyway, as far as I'm concerned, this draft was not at all as terrible as someone described.

B-
 
I really don’t like our first-round selection. Hard to break above C+ because of that. I understand the Hughes selection.

I really hope that the offseason changes aren’t basically over at this point. Obviously Clarkson is a big question, but if that’s the last thing to be addressed, one way or the other, then it’s going to be a long season.
 
A for the mere fact that I don’t have to watch Tony Bradley play basketball for our team ever again. Watching the playoffs our biggest need was someone who isn’t an absolute scrub play backup center.

Udoka was the best defensive player in the draft and was one of the best players in all of college basketball. He’s barely just turned 21 and is a month younger than Ja Morant.

We also saved $3,542,060 of salary by moving Bradley too.

We had to trade pick 38 to get off of Bradley and we wouldn’t have had that pick if we didn’t trade 23 for 27 and 38. Udoka was our guy all along and trading down was the best thing to do.
 
A-

only concern with Udoka are injuries. If anybody can play that Gobert role from a rim protection and rim running standpoint, it is Udoka.
And one positive that is being overlooked in regard to Azubuike is that he can punish smaller dudes when switched on on the post. PJ Tucker can hold his own on Rudy, but Udoka will score every time with dudes like that on him. We keep wanting Rudy to develop a little jump hook, Udoka has that
 
seattlejazzfan said:
A-

only concern with Udoka are injuries. If anybody can play that Gobert role from a rim protection and rim running standpoint, it is Udoka.
And one positive that is being overlooked in regard to Azubuike is that he can punish smaller dudes when switched on on the post. PJ Tucker can hold his own on Rudy, but Udoka will score every time with dudes like that on him. We keep wanting Rudy to develop a little jump hook, Udoka has that
Click to expand...
He's definitely going to make the 2nd unit better.
 
Also, I like, don’t love Hughes. Good pick. I think his inefficiency issues were fairly similar to Donovan’s coming out of Louisville- he was the guy, defenses focused on him and he took a lot of tough/bad shots. His stroke is pure. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him shoot 36% from NBA three- if he gets a shot.
 
F. We need more guys to do dirty work so we can push Royce back to 20 min a game. Instead, we get a Rudy sub and yet another scorer who also needs the his shots to fall in order to be effective, which does nothing to fix our fundamental problem on this team. We need players other than the center who can contribute without ever touching the ball and play bigger than their positions. Instead we continue with this drop big mentality that will kill us against stronger and more physical teams that we will see in playoffs basketball, that is to assume we can still make it that far
 
TheGoldStandard said:
Doke has the highest standing vertical in combine history as 37". He is a beast. But he is very injury prone, and he will be exposed by shooting big men and has no range. He has good footwork, and will allow the Jazz to run consistent sets with starter and bench players. He plays smart and I think he will be a good passer.

I have a feeling injuries will plague this guys career. Bad wrist injuries in two different seasons, but at least no broken feet like Borchardt. He will be a good defensive traditional center, and hopefully his inside d makes up for poor perimeter d. A great upgrade from Bradley for sure. I give a C- because of the injury history. Dude was really only healthy one year in College. If he stays healthy, which I doubt, I'd give a B-.

Hughes has good shooting form, but great shooting balance. Whether shooting stationary or off the dribble, he rises up with similar balanced form.

However, he made a lot of horrible decisions and took a lot of ill advised shots, low bbiq. Hopefully he can lose the chucker mentality quick.

In classic Jazz form, another pick with poor rim finishing percentages. He could be a great shooter in this league, but he'll have to be if he wants to stay in the league. If you watched him last year, you would have noticed a wrap on his shooting hand most of the year. It didn't visibly seem to bother him when I saw him play, but it may have hurt his percentages. What I noticed this last year when he took the leading role, is he has trouble creating good space. May not be an issue if he can get open shots on rotation.

Better prospects still on the board. C+.
Click to expand...

Hughes shot a LOT of contested shots becuase that is what was required of him. His assisted shot percentage was very,very good. We don't need him to go 1 on 1, we have other players to do that. We need him to hit a shot when he is open or put into an advantage situation which is what we do.

He also can go strong to the rim, which makes me happy. We don't know what he looks like defensively because he played zone exclusively, but the 1 block a game tells me that he cares on that end.
 
I'll go with a C, would have been lower last night. Of course these grades mean nothing and I would love to eat crow.

I would have taken several other players ahead of who we took at each spot, so I'm of course going to be bummed out. But I also don't know ****.

I'm really hoping Dok really quickly just looks great on an NBA floor. I can definitely see the whole board being meh on the dude then he checks into the game catches a nasty alley oop and just like that it's "Okay damn, this dude is is already bigger than everyone else and doesn't look lost on an NBA court. We have something here." May as well be optimistic.

I like the size and skills of Hughes. But obviously there are lots of questions since he was a mid second rounder. Not really fair to have big expectations for the 38th pick (or 27th tbh) but again, why not be optimistic.

What's done is done, don't really have any choice but to get with it and hope for the best. Welcome to the Jazz.
 
framer said:
Hughes shot a LOT of contested shots becuase that is what was required of him. His assisted shot percentage was very,very good. We don't need him to go 1 on 1, we have other players to do that. We need him to hit a shot when he is open or put into an advantage situation which is what we do.

He also can go strong to the rim, which makes me happy. We don't know what he looks like defensively because he played zone exclusively, but the 1 block a game tells me that he cares on that end.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree, and he was more of a spot up shooter two years ago. I think he is a good shooter. Already said that. But what I saw this past year was a good team player look really selfish. Yes, he had to take more contested shots, but I saw him airball multiple forced jumpers and many others way off target when he could have passed out of double teams. He won't have that pressure with the Jazz, but this past season revealed his low bbiq. My best friend went to Syracuse, so we watched a lot of games. Hughes is ballsy and fearless and plays hard, but man, a lot of bonehead decisions this past year.
 
It depends on what the Jazz are trying to accomplish in the draft. They obviously settled on a strategy to upgrade their defense at the backup 5 position, and they saw Udoka as the best way to do that. They decided they wanted a rotation-caliber 2-guard and felt Hughes could play that role (kind of a more athletic Rodney Hood with occasional defense). So the Jazz made a rational plan and they executed it, while also getting Tony Bradley off their payroll. You could tell that Justin Zanik and Dave Morway were satisfied with the night they had.

From my perspective, I normally see the draft as a way to swing for starter and even star-caliber players. Maybe Udoka will be that, who knows? But the Jazz could have just sat at #23 and drafted RJ Hampton or Jaden McDaniels, two one-and-done players with long-term starter and even possibly fringe All Star potential. Then they could have made a move to acquire another pick to draft Udoka in the early 2nd round. In other words, the Jazz walked away from the opportunity to draft a potential starter who fell into their range.

Dallas picked up Josh Green, Tyler Bey, and Tyrell Terry--all solid rotation pieces with clear roles and value in the modern league.
Denver picked up Zeke Nnaji and RJ Hampton, two first-round players that will make an impact for them.

The Jazz front office thinks that Udoka is a rare commodity who is athletic enough to guard in space eventually and won't be made a liability on a spaced floor. Then on the offensive side, they think they've basically got a Shaq-like beast at the rim.

Udoka is the guy the Jazz wanted and they positioned themselves to get, while clearing Bradley from the roster. The jury is still out for me until I see how Udoka translates to the NBA and the Jazz's system.
 
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