Jazz still shooting for one missing piece


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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz have come out of the NBA’s All-Star break winning games at a blistering pace. Having won four of their past five games, the Jazz are only allowing 83 points a game since the league midseason break.

Rudy Gobert has emerged since Enes Kanter was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder as the defensive force in the paint that NBA teams search for in the draft and free agency. Derrick Favors fits nicely alongside Gobert as a secondary shot blocker and a quicker defender for the NBA’s more athletic big men.

Gordon Hayward has emerged as a go-to scoring option, averaging nearly 20 points per game while complementing his scoring prowess with the ability to distribute and rebound the basketball.

Dante Exum, though only 19 years old, is emerging as a defensive force on the perimeter. His height and length are elite for his position, and complement his speed extraordinarily. Trey Burke, in his new-found role coming off the bench, looks like a future sixth man of the year award candidate, earning a green light to shoot the ball whenever he sees the opportunity.

But the Jazz need more.

Despite finding answers at what looks like four of the five starting positions, the Jazz are in need of a starting shooting guard to complete the line-up.

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The hole in the roster appears larger due to the absence of fourth-year guard Alec Burks, sidelined with a season-ending shoulder injury. The Jazz hope Burks is able to fill the role, having signed him to a four-year, $40 million contract this past offseason, but questions remain about his fit.

For his career, Burks shoots 35 percent from the 3-point line, a respectable but unspectacular number. With the logjam created in the paint by Gobert and Favors, Burks’ ability to get into the lane and finish at the basket may be seriously impacted. While Hayward, Exum and Burke are willing 3-point shooters, none of the three are deadeye marksmen providing Burks the spacing needed to utilize his attacking style.

John Stockton and Karl Malone combined to create one of the NBA’s best duos, but neither could take the Jazz to the Finals prior to the arrival of Jeff Hornacek. Only when Hornacek added an elite long-distance shooter to the Jazz scoring punch were they able to make a run to the NBA’s championship round.

The Jazz find themselves in a similar situation now.

While the team has filled the shooting guard position piecemeal, starting Joe Ingles, Elijah Millsap and Rodney Hood, none of the three qualify as elite shooters at this point in their careers.

Unfortunately, two of the NBA’s best shooters have recently played for the Jazz in Wesley Matthews and Kyle Korver, but both have gone on to leave the team in free agency, only to find greener pastures with their new teams.

Of the NBA’s current top 20 3-point shooters, only former Jazzman DeMarre Carroll fits the Jazz needs by position, age and availability as an unrestricted free agent this offseason. Carroll’s willingness to return to Utah could be enhanced based on his relationship with current Jazz coach Quin Snyder who former worked with Carroll as an assistant in Atlanta. Though his relationship with the front office is in question, as they allowed him to walk away empty-handed once before.

Beyond bringing back old names, the Jazz's best option will be adding a shooter through the draft. With the Jazz's recent success, the team appears bound for a late lottery pick, somewhere between 10 and 14, with the NBA’s lottery system making it unlikely to move up in June’s draft. Duke’s Justise Winslow, Kansas’ Kelly Oubre, Michigan’s Caris LeVert and Kentucky’s Devin Booker all project as shooters in the NBA, though only Booker maintains a 3-point shooting percentage over 40 percent. LeVert is likely the most NBA ready, as the only player on the list who has played more than one season in college, but has battled multiple foot injuries that will certainly draw red flags from teams in the draft.

No NBA team is perfect, and every team has a hole in its roster it could fill to create a more complete product, and this Jazz team is no different. The Jazz have found talented young players in the draft to build the roster that appears on the brink of a major break-out, but they’ll likely have to repeat the process once more this summer to complete a roster that is still in need of one major piece.


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About the Author: Ben Anderson ------------------------------

Ben Anderson is the co-host of Gunther in the Afternoon with Kyle Gunther on 1320 KFAN from 3-7, Monday through Friday. Read Ben's Utah Jazz blog at 1320kfan.com, and follow him on Twitter @BenKFAN.

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