Is Evans pretty much a lock to make the roster at thispoint?

[CrushMI]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtLsjBf7ceg&feature=related

Go to about the 1:13 mark of the video.

Here is video of one of Evans' biggest plays at WKU. He was matched against Samardo Samuels of Louisville who was the reigning High School Player of the Year. During a critical time in the second half, he had one of his biggest blocks of his career. Samardo left the game injured and WKU pulls off the victory.

He is a great shot blocker, but probably hasn't shown it much yet in Utah. He has great timing and can really have some highlight blocks from off the ball.

Here is another of a couple of highlight dunks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Xq0jxWZHU

 

[vj_74]

Both last game and tonight, Evans has quietly had an efficient game. If he keeps this up, maybe he will be this year's Wes Maththews. Hope he is working out to beef up more.

 

[vj_74]

For me, the only real recent "busts" have been Snyder and Humphries. It's always a crap shoot late in the 1st, especially if you try to go big. Maynor was a good pick. Koufos certainly looked like one of the BPA's at the time. Almond could have been a very good player in the league, but he just didn't want to play defense (or pass the ball). .

all you are doing here is making excuses for why those players suck. Almond coulda, Sasha woulda and so on. The bottomline is none of those players panned out for us.Whether they didnt want to play defense or didnt want to pass the ball or whatever are all not valid excuses. Those are part of the reasons why they sucked. Borchardt, Snyder, Humphries, Almond, Sasha going back all the way to Quincy freaking Lewis. Thats a lot of mediocre picks. Even Brewer was a so-so pick but atleast he is a rotation player somewhere in the league and was also a regular starter for us

 

[Stifle Tower]

all you are doing here is making excuses for why those players suck. Almond coulda, Sasha woulda and so on. The bottomline is none of those players panned out for us.Whether they didnt want to play defense or didnt want to pass the ball or whatever are all not valid excuses. Those are part of the reasons why they sucked. Borchardt, Snyder, Humphries, Almond, Sasha going back all the way to Quincy freaking Lewis. Thats a lot of mediocre picks. Even Brewer was a so-so pick but atleast he is a rotation player somewhere in the league and was also a regular starter for us

No, I'm just saying that after the lottery picks, it's generally a crap shoot. I consider a "bust" to be a player taken in the lottery whio didn't pan out. Well, technically, Snyder wasn't a lottery pick, but close enough. In that draft there were certainly a lot of players taken later who turned out to be good players. But IIRC, there were a lot of poeple on the old Jazzfanz that had man crushes on Sergei Monia and not too many that mentioned Delonte West or Kevin Martin or Anderson Varejao. The next season we hit a home run with Deron and did all right with CJ. Behind Miles, you only had Monta and Turiaf, so not too shabby.

And look at the Brewer pick: immediately behind him were Simmons, Carney, Shawne Willaims, Pecherov, Douby and Balkman. And then Rondo. And of the picks right around Millsap, only Powe turned out to be a serviceable player. Sure, you can point to the players who didn't work out, but you also need to look at who was available at that pick. There are always hits and misses, but overall, I'd say the Jazz have drafted better than average. And they have to: Utah doesn't attract too many top-tier FA's.

 

[colton]

To answer the question in the thread title: Yes, Evans is a lock. I will boycott the Jazz this season if they cut him. I went to the game tonight and he was the player that impressed me the most. To be a starter he'll certainly need to become a more well rounded player, but he can absolutely be a hustle guy off the bench right now. I hope he gets some consistent minutes. My recommendation: send Hayward to the Flash if need be, but keep Evans on the active roster.

 

[Deleted member 365]

To answer the question in the thread title: Yes, Evans is a lock. I will boycott the Jazz this season if they cut him. I went to the game tonight and he was the player that impressed me the most. To be a starter he'll certainly need to become a more well rounded player, but he can absolutely be a hustle guy off the bench right now. I hope he gets some consistent minutes. My recommendation: send Hayward to the Flash if need be, but keep Evans on the active roster.

Think the Jazz would have enough courage to actually do that? Send their lotto pick to the flash while keeping their #....45? Pick on the active roster? Has that ever happened?

Do you think Evans could perhaps play over Millsap? What impressed you the most about Evans tonight?

 

[vj_74]

No, I'm just saying that after the lottery picks, it's generally a crap shoot. I consider a "bust" to be a player taken in the lottery whio didn't pan out. There are always hits and misses, but overall, I'd say the Jazz have drafted better than average. .

Better than average only in the second round and from undrafted players/RMR. Not in the first round.And the second round has to be even more of a crap shoot than the first.Funny then, that the Jazz unearth more role players out of the second round than late 1st round picks. That tells me that they dont know how to draft talent in the late 1st round.

The list of failed or mediocre players from the first round in the Jazz system is quite long. Thats been pretty much a consistent criticism of KOC on this board over the years.Padgett, Quincy, Borchardt, Deshawn, Sasha, Snyder, Humphries, Almond. That's a nice list. Koufos is still pending. And I am kind enough to leave out Lopez, although drafting him over Parker was a mistake. Last 3 or 4 years has been marginally better, after Deron.But until then it was close to a disaster for 5-6 years.

 

[colton]

Think the Jazz would have enough courage to actually do that? Send their lotto pick to the flash while keeping their #....45? Pick on the active roster? Has that ever happened?

Do you think Evans could perhaps play over Millsap? What impressed you the most about Evans tonight?

No, I don't think Evans should play over Millsap--Millsap was also very impressive. One of the best players on the floor for either team when he was in the game.

What impressed me the most about Evans, was that he was very often in the right place at the right time. Too often for it to be just luck. Then, he had the athletic ability to take advantage of the situations he was in--grabbing a rebound, getting a put-back basket, and so forth. The thing that kept on going through my mind was the saying that "To make it in the NBA, you've got to have at least one NBA-level skill." (Sorry if I butchered the quote; I can't recall who said it and I couldn't find it on google.) It was clear that Evans does have at least one NBA-caliber skill. I have little doubt that he will make it in the NBA, if he continues to work hard and work on his game (which all signs seem to indicate he will do).

Hayward, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. If you were to ask me, "What is his (at least one) NBA-level skill?" I'd be hard pressed to name anything at all based on last night's game.

 

[JoelHodgeJr]

To be fair, he was pretty much accepted league wide as the 2nd best player of the draft, most teams would of picked him 2nd, hell some probably would of even taken him 1st overall.

At least he's not Darko right? He could be the biggest bust of all time.

 

[JimLes]

The list of failed or mediocre players from the first round in the Jazz system is quite long. Thats been pretty much a consistent criticism of KOC on this board over the years.Padgett, Quincy, Borchardt, Deshawn, Sasha, Snyder, Humphries, Almond. That's a nice list. Koufos is still pending. And I am kind enough to leave out Lopez, although drafting him over Parker was a mistake. Last 3 or 4 years has been marginally better, after Deron.But until then it was close to a disaster for 5-6 years.

How is this different than the other 29 teams in the NBA? Drafting in the bottom half of the first round for 20+ years will naturally lead to quite a few stinkers. Hayward was only our second top 10 pick since the Miller family bought the team. What other team drafting consistently in the late second round doesn't have a spotty draft record? When the Blazers went almost 20 years without missing the playoffs, they got Randolph and O'Neal, but also such luminaries as Chris Antsey, Qyntel Woods and something called an Alaa Abdelnaby. Same goes for the Spurs. It's easy to use selective evidence and point to Ginobili and Parker and fawn over how well the Spurs draft, but they've also had Felipe Lopez, Ian Mahinmni, Damir Markota, etc. Worse yet, since drafting Parker, they've also drafted Salmons, Scola, Udrih, Barbosa, and Dragic, and managed to give them all away. What good is drafting well when you give players away?

Hell, even the Lakers, whose organization seems to be able to swindle anyone out of anything, have drafted jack all since 1996 when they took Fisher. In that entire time, they got Andrew Bynum and that was it. Sasha Vujacic, Javaris Crittenton, Brian Cook, Chris Jefferies, Mark Madsen...does that sound any better than Borchardt, Snyder, Humphries?