Stifle Tower
Punch Bowl Re-Filler
I wouldn't count Evans as a "big." He's an end of the bench guy - unless he makes a drastic leap forward in ability and puts on 25 pounds, which isn't likely. And Okur is at the end of his career. What we do have is two known quantities in Jefferson and Millsap and two prospects in Favors and Kanter. We saw good promise from Favors last season. I'm pretty confident he'll be - at worst - a good starter at some point and has the potential to be great. Kanter is a complete unknown. He could be our starter for the next 10 years or he could be the a Turkish Sam Bowie or Darco Milicic.
Same with Alec Burks. Does he become Brandon Roy (hopefully without the knee issues) or Kirk Snyder?
You just never know with rookies and I won't be overly excited until we see if they can play NBA-level basketball. And that may take 1-2 years, especially with Kanter. Hayward is a prime example of patience paying off. Until mid-season he looked woefully inadequate - lost on the court, couldn't shoot. Then it all started to click and he was shooting lights out, playing very good defense and looking like a starter. Favors was in a similar situation. The #3 pick and NJ had him parked on the bench. Now everyone on jazzfanz is saying we should trade Millsap and/or Jefferson because Favors/Kanter will be dominant players at their positions? I think that's extremely premature.
What I think we saw from the draft is the Jazz took BPA at both positions and the plan by KOC is to get bigger and continue to create mismatches at key positions. I was really thinking the Jazz would go PG/SF as those are the areas of greatest need and I didn't think the Jazz had Kanter and Burks rated a lot higher than say Knight and Leonard (or Singleton or Hamilton). Obviously, Kanter was rated much higher and I think Burks was due to his size. SF should be the easiest position to fill - there;'s a lot of guys 6'7-6'8" out there. No need to break the bank or over reach. CJ holds down the spot for 1 more year unless/until the Jazz make a trade or sign a FA.
Same with Alec Burks. Does he become Brandon Roy (hopefully without the knee issues) or Kirk Snyder?
You just never know with rookies and I won't be overly excited until we see if they can play NBA-level basketball. And that may take 1-2 years, especially with Kanter. Hayward is a prime example of patience paying off. Until mid-season he looked woefully inadequate - lost on the court, couldn't shoot. Then it all started to click and he was shooting lights out, playing very good defense and looking like a starter. Favors was in a similar situation. The #3 pick and NJ had him parked on the bench. Now everyone on jazzfanz is saying we should trade Millsap and/or Jefferson because Favors/Kanter will be dominant players at their positions? I think that's extremely premature.
What I think we saw from the draft is the Jazz took BPA at both positions and the plan by KOC is to get bigger and continue to create mismatches at key positions. I was really thinking the Jazz would go PG/SF as those are the areas of greatest need and I didn't think the Jazz had Kanter and Burks rated a lot higher than say Knight and Leonard (or Singleton or Hamilton). Obviously, Kanter was rated much higher and I think Burks was due to his size. SF should be the easiest position to fill - there;'s a lot of guys 6'7-6'8" out there. No need to break the bank or over reach. CJ holds down the spot for 1 more year unless/until the Jazz make a trade or sign a FA.
