For Jazz, drafting best available player may be hard to define


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SALT LAKE CITY — The NBA draft is just under a month away, and the Utah Jazz currently own the 12th pick of the first round. Every scout and general manager around the league will be asked at some point this summer what his strategy will be on draft night, whether to pick the player with the highest upside or highest floor. Draft for need, or draft for talent? Draft internationally, or locally? Draft experience, or inexperience?

But the answer usually stays the same. You draft the best available player.

As fans of the league, members of the media, general managers and scouts must know, best available player can have many definitions. This will be the case for the Jazz on June 25 and may have a more vague interpretation this year than in years past.

Last summer, the Jazz had the fifth overall pick, and at that time a glaring talent deficiency. Going into an off season with Gordon Hayward set to hit the free-agent market, and questions on what his value would be, best available player meant the Jazz simply needed to take the player with the highest future potential. When Dante Exum fell to the Jazz at pick five, he was an obvious choice. With his blend of elite size and speed, few players in the league could match Exum’s physical profile. Despite the fact that the Jazz had drafted Trey Burke, another point guard just a year earlier, the team knew its talent level was not on par with other young teams around the league, and swung for the fences.

Speaking of Burke, however, it’s possible that best available player meant something entirely different in the 2013 draft than it did when the team selected Exum. The Jazz held the 14th and 21st picks going into the night, but were thought by many to be in the market for a point guard. At the time, the Jazz were going into an off season designed around releasing veteran free agents and rebuilding around a young core.

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The team featured Alec Burks, Gordon Hayward, Enes Kanter and Derrick Favors, but had no point guard to speak of. Had the Jazz kept the 14th pick, it was likely that the top three point guards in the draft — Trey Burke, CJ McCollum and Michael Carter-Williams — would have been off the board, so the team packaged its two first round picks to move into the top 10 to select Burke. While he was likely the best talent on the board with the 9th pick when the Jazz selected him, he was also picked to fill a positional need, rather than to blindly up the talent level of the roster.

Before the night was through, the Jazz had purchased the 27th overall pick to select Rudy Gobert. General manager Dennis Lindsey has said Gobert was drafted to add depth at the center position, while avoiding having to pay going rate for an experienced backup big man on the free-agent market. Again, while Gobert may have been the highest-rated player on the Jazz draft board at 27, he was selected to fill a need, rather than simply upping the talent level.

In 2011, the Jazz moved up in the lottery process using a pick owed to them by the New Jersey Nets and drafted Enes Kanter with the third overall pick. The Jazz already had a talented front court with Al Jefferson and Paul Millsap playing starting roles and a former top three pick in rookie Derrick Favors. Having just traded All-Star guard Deron Williams, the Jazz opted to select purely on talent, despite a log jam in the rotation, understanding the team needed to add a possible star to the roster.

While it’s too early to have a definitive answer on Exum, and is still early in the process with Burke, it’s clear that selecting Kanter, and asking him to develop off the bench behind other proven players, played a role in his ugly departure from the team. In that case, simply drafting best talent available may not have been the best strategy. It is worth noting that the Jazz received a future first-round draft pick in return for Kanter, a decent return for a disgruntled player. Burke, potentially drafted for need rather than pure talent, is now a back up for the Jazz, having lost his spot to Exum, a pure talent pick, midway through this season.

While this is admittedly an unfairly small sample size, there is evidence to support drafting based on talent alone and drafting for need. Exum became a starter just 42 games into his NBA career, replacing the player the Jazz likely drafted based on fit just a season earlier. Rudy Gobert was selected to fill a need, and he has developed into arguably the best player from his draft class.

So Jazz fans, while general managers and scouts look to avoid providing any insight into their draft strategy by hiding behind the term best available player, understand that success on draft night doesn’t come from one well-defined direction. Your definition of best available player may be correct today and wrong tomorrow.


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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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