Draft Grades

[Crunch 99]

Here is the link to the Deseret News article I referred to above claiming that both Hendricks and George were in the Jazz' top ten list of players. Could be just a feel good, PR story pushed by the organization, but I guess it is plausible. Makes me more excited about George today than I was at the time of the pick!

Jazz come away from draft night feeling like everything went according to plan
https://www.deseret.com/2023/6/23/23768725/utah-jazz-come-away-from-nba-draft-feeling-everything-went-to-plan-danny-ainge-justin-zanik

Snips: “The way the draft board fell, really took a fortunate turn for us,” Zanik said. “We got two of the guys that we had in our top 10 — players, frankly, that we were debating which one to take at nine and we ended up getting both of them. And at 28 we got a player that we had in our top 18.”

Though general manager Justin Zanik fielded multiple calls throughout the night and there were opportunities for the Jazz to make some moves, there was no panic or feeling of necessity to make a deal, especially once things started to unfold.

“It was all pretty peaceful,” Jazz CEO Danny Ainge said after the draft ended.

[AingesBurner]

Danny has been pretty good at assessing talent so I am comfortable with those picks.

[Rauxcee]

The Jazz didn't sell second round picks for cash considerations, didn't draft an immovable stiff of a center, and didn't give up a FRP for a PG rental. Best draft they've had in years.

[D Rog]

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O U C H !!! Can't argue much with the #16 & #28

[dr0welf]

I will wait until half way through the season to evaluate the draft. Every year so called experts say who won or lost and later on half their winners are worthless and half their losers are kicking butt. I feel we had a solid draft. We will see if anyone snuck by us as the season goes

[ForeverRDjazz]

I will wait until half way through the season to evaluate the draft. Every year so called experts say who won or lost and later on half their winners are worthless and half their losers are kicking butt. I feel we had a solid draft. We will see if anyone snuck by us as the season goes

I second this. Our 28 th pick might be better than our ninth pick. I remember when we drafted AK 47 and they said good Offence poor D. Blocking machine rookie year mr 5x5 . They guess and then grade based off there guesses. Half way we should have pretty good read on our picks. Other teams not so much. Couple years for that. Over all Danny and z both seem pretty happy. I was on the stay put team and we did. More swings to hit the ball.

[ForeverRDjazz]

As I hit couple other teams and they're all high on there picks.

[stitches]

Here is the link to the Deseret News article I referred to above claiming that both Hendricks and George were in the Jazz' top ten list of players. Could be just a feel good, PR story pushed by the organization, but I guess it is plausible. Makes me more excited about George today than I was at the time of the pick!

Jazz come away from draft night feeling like everything went according to plan
https://www.deseret.com/2023/6/23/23768725/utah-jazz-come-away-from-nba-draft-feeling-everything-went-to-plan-danny-ainge-justin-zanik

Snips: “The way the draft board fell, really took a fortunate turn for us,” Zanik said. “We got two of the guys that we had in our top 10 — players, frankly, that we were debating which one to take at nine and we ended up getting both of them. And at 28 we got a player that we had in our top 18.”

Though general manager Justin Zanik fielded multiple calls throughout the night and there were opportunities for the Jazz to make some moves, there was no panic or feeling of necessity to make a deal, especially once things started to unfold.

“It was all pretty peaceful,” Jazz CEO Danny Ainge said after the draft ended.

For whatever it's worth, during the draft Sam Vecenie from the Athletic was saying before the Jazz picked at 9 that he's gotten some intel that if it turned correct might shock some people... and then after they picked Keyonte George at 16, he said something to the effect "Now that they've picked him, I can say it - my source on the Jazz was telling me that Keyonte was in play for the Jazz at 9 and that's what I was alluding to when I said there might be a surprise at 9". Again this was before Zanik pretty much said the Jazz had Hendricks at 9 and Keyonte at 10 on their board.

[ForeverRDjazz]

Nice read on I'm feeling Great Ryan Kostecka. Brice being Mr Florida. #1 in state and being friends with Taylor who put them out of the state championship game 62 to 60. I like we took players that are friends before joining the jazz. Going to be a fun year watching this team grow together. Think our coach will get the most out of our players.

[SoCalJazzFan]

Hopefully, we did better than this guy back in 2017

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[ForeverRDjazz]

Hopefully, we did better than this guy back in 2017

Read on Twitter

Think he meant to say BUST out with Utah?

[Inigo Montoya]

After taking a few days to let things settle, my conclusion is still the same as it was on draft night. I give the Jazz a B.

My main issue is that the Jazz imho did not pick players with star upside, and did not take a swing for the fences even once. In fact, they were very conservative with their selection even when opportunity slapped them in the face twice when they passed on Whitmore at 9 and 16. I think Hendricks and George will have long NBA careers but I don't see any of them being a top-3 player on a good team, or a star. If you told me before the draft that the Jazz would end up with Hendricks, George and Sensabaugh I'd say they had a pretty good draft, but considering how the draft unfolded, the Jazz had better/higher upside options at every pick as the draft really broke the Jazz's way.

With Hendricks, I see the appeal of his defensive versatility and his ability to shoot 3s. What I don't like is lack of star upside, lack of ability to create offense, and I'm also unsure of the fit next to Kessler and Markkanen. Picking Hendricks makes even less sense given the Collins trade, and the fact that the Jazz planned to go hard after Porzingis before he was traded to the Celtics (which I'm glad didn't happen).

As for George, I like his ability to create offense. He as a lot of moves and he'll definitely find a place in the league. But to me, I see him as a microwave scorer, 6th man off the bench type like Clarkson. Hopefully he'll surpass this expectation (if he's as good as Clarkson he's still a good pick at 16) but that's what I see as his most reasonable outcome. But at this point in the draft, you have to take Cam.

With Sensabaugh, I can see why they picked him, but I think there were higher upside picks at that range although he's a good value pick at 28.

Overall, I'm not mad about the draft, I think the Jazz did pretty well, but they played it way too safe imho. It was a decent draft but it could have been an amazing draft. As of now, I don't think the Jazz drafted a player who in five years or so we'll be saying he changed the Jazz's fortune and that's disappointing. Hopefully I'm wrong.

[SoCalJazzFan]

After taking a few days to let things settle, my conclusion is still the same as it was on draft night. I give the Jazz a B.

My main issue is that the Jazz imho did not pick players with star upside, and did not take a swing for the fences even once. In fact, they were very conservative with their selection even when opportunity slapped them in the face twice when they passed on Whitmore at 9 and 16. I think Hendricks and George will have long NBA careers but I don't see any of them being a top-3 player on a good team, or a star. If you told me before the draft that the Jazz would end up with Hendricks, George and Sensabaugh I'd say they had a pretty good draft, but considering how the draft unfolded, the Jazz had better/higher upside options at every pick as the draft really broke the Jazz's way.

With Hendricks, I see the appeal of his defensive versatility and his ability to shoot 3s. What I don't like is lack of star upside, lack of ability to create offense, and I'm also unsure of the fit next to Kessler and Markkanen. Picking Hendricks makes even less sense given the Collins trade, and the fact that the Jazz planned to go hard after Porzingis before he was traded to the Celtics (which I'm glad didn't happen).

As for George, I like his ability to create offense. He as a lot of moves and he'll definitely find a place in the league. But to me, I see him as a microwave scorer, 6th man off the bench type like Clarkson. Hopefully he'll surpass this expectation (if he's as good as Clarkson he's still a good pick at 16) but that's what I see as his most reasonable outcome. But at this point in the draft, you have to take Cam.

With Sensabaugh, I can see why they picked him, but I think there wee higher upside picks at that range although he's a good value pick at 28.

Overall, I'm not mad about the draft, I think the Jazz did pretty well, but they played it way too safe imho. It was a decent draft but it could have been an amazing draft. As of now, I don't think the Jazz drafted a player who in five years or so we'll be saying he changed the Jazz's fortune and that's disappointing. Hopefully I'm wrong.

This is very much how I feel. I am probably higher on Hendricks and his fit with Markk and Kessler than you are, but I have the same concerns about Keyonte George as you do and also wish that the Jazz would have traded up from 28 to get someone like Dariq Whitehead, who has top 5 draft pick potential and would fit seemlessly in to the lineup, or taken a swing on someone like Leonard Miller or GG Jackson.

This was the year for the Jazz to tank and take a swing or two for a potential star. They did neither.

[babyjax13]

Revisiting this way too early. Thoughts so far?

[Inigo Montoya]

My thoughts about the Jazz's draft haven't changed much. Can't really say anything about the Sensei because we haven't seen him play in the NBA. I think Hendricks looked promising and might actually fit better then I thought next to Markkanen and Kessler. I still don't see star potential but he does look like he could be a really nice player. As for George, so far he looked like I suspected he would - nice handles, fluid movement, offensive flashes, but very inefficient. For a 16th pick I think he's fine but as a whole, it still feels like the Jazz didn't draft players with star potential. Do I think the Jazz found their PGOTF in George? So far, I'm far from convinced, which isn't a knock on George.

This draft class has been relatively tame so far. Wemby looks legit, Miller looks like he was the right pick at #2 (I was skeptical about that), Scoot has been the biggest surprise as he's been very disappointing, Ausar had a nice start. Other than that, a lot of players from this draft haven't got a lot of minutes. The real surprises are Dereck Lively and Jaime Jaquez who looked great and ready to play from the start.

[HadAnEffectHere]

Scoot had an obscenely bad start, but is starting to recover.

Hard to say who else has not basically played to expectations so far?

My only take is that I don't think the Pistons and Rockets knew what they were getting into with the Thompson twins...

Having someone who literally can't shoot at all as a perimeter player is uhhhhhh, not possible to make work unless your entire team is built completely around them?

There was a lot of pre-draft disconnect between scouts (who often think about how the game was in 2007 or something) and actual existing basketball reality about the Thompsons... You can't be Ben Simmons anymore.

[Crunch 99]

After taking a few days to let things settle, my conclusion is still the same as it was on draft night. I give the Jazz a B.

My main issue is that the Jazz imho did not pick players with star upside, and did not take a swing for the fences even once. In fact, they were very conservative with their selection even when opportunity slapped them in the face twice when they passed on Whitmore at 9 and 16.

Spoiler:

I think Hendricks and George will have long NBA careers but I don't see any of them being a top-3 player on a good team, or a star. If you told me before the draft that the Jazz would end up with Hendricks, George and Sensabaugh I'd say they had a pretty good draft, but considering how the draft unfolded, the Jazz had better/higher upside options at every pick as the draft really broke the Jazz's way.

With Hendricks, I see the appeal of his defensive versatility and his ability to shoot 3s. What I don't like is lack of star upside, lack of ability to create offense, and I'm also unsure of the fit next to Kessler and Markkanen. Picking Hendricks makes even less sense given the Collins trade, and the fact that the Jazz planned to go hard after Porzingis before he was traded to the Celtics (which I'm glad didn't happen).

As for George, I like his ability to create offense. He as a lot of moves and he'll definitely find a place in the league. But to me, I see him as a microwave scorer, 6th man off the bench type like Clarkson. Hopefully he'll surpass this expectation (if he's as good as Clarkson he's still a good pick at 16) but that's what I see as his most reasonable outcome. But at this point in the draft, you have to take Cam.

With Sensabaugh, I can see why they picked him, but I think there were higher upside picks at that range although he's a good value pick at 28.

Overall, I'm not mad about the draft, I think the Jazz did pretty well, but they played it way too safe imho. It was a decent draft but it could have been an amazing draft. As of now, I don't think the Jazz drafted a player who in five years or so we'll be saying he changed the Jazz's fortune and that's disappointing. Hopefully I'm wrong.

After watching Whitmore have a very good game to help beat the Jazz on Saturday night, what do you think his upside is? He's already sporting a 58.1 TS%, which is very good for a 19 year old rookie.

Whitmore has a lot of DNPs and has only played in about half of Houston's games, but he has emerged as a regular rotation player lately. I am widly guessing his red flags were mainly conditioning and drive, and Udoka and staff are having some success helping him overcome these issues.

[Inigo Montoya]

After watching Whitmore help beat the Jazz on Saturday night, what do you think his upside is? He's already sporting a 58.1 TS%, which is very good for a 19 year old rookie.

Whitmore has a lot of DNPs and has only played in about half of Houston's games, but he has become a regular in Houston's rotation lately. I am wildly guessing his red flags were mainly conditioning and drive, and Udoka and staff are having some success helping him overcome these issues.

After the draft there were speculations about who that mystery player was who had that infamous workout, and some pointed to Whitmore and suggested that was the reason he fell. I still don't know who that player is, but other rumors say it was GG Jackson, which I find to be more believable given his young age and the immaturity he displayed. From what I gathered regarding Whitmore before the draft, he had no issues with his drive, don't know about his conditioning.

Watch on YouTube

As for Whitmore, he's been tearing up the d-league, and since he's been called to play for the Rockets he showed he can score in bunches in limited minutes. My personal impression watching him before the draft is that he has star player potential, which is something I haven't seen from the rookies we drafted (I'll peg George as a wildcard as he is offensively gifted but his efficiency concerns me. I do like his intangibles though). I can't say for certain what he'll become but I think the upside is clear. A very athletic player with good handles, good shot, good offensive instincts, strong frame and also has defensive potential. Very young. Seems like a very good prospect to me. I think that at the very least he'll be a good scorer off the bench, but his ceiling is much higher. I think that if he won't have any health\injury concerns, a lot of teams will regret not drafting him, including the Jazz. I think he'd be a pretty good fit at the SG/SF spot.

[Crunch 99]

Yes, watching Whitmore in Saturday's night game against the Jazz, he looked like he has an impressive combination of athleticism and power.

[babyjax13]

After watching Whitmore help beat the Jazz on Saturday night, what do you think his upside is? He's already sporting a 58.1 TS%, which is very good for a 19 year old rookie.

Whitmore has a lot of DNPs and has only played in about half of Houston's games, but he has become a regular in Houston's rotation lately. I am wildly guessing his red flags were mainly conditioning and drive, and Udoka and staff are having some success helping him overcome these issues.

After the draft there were speculations about who that mystery player was who had that infamous workout, and some pointed to Whitmore and suggested that was the reason he fell. I still don't know who that player is, but other rumors say it was GG Jackson, which I find to be more believable given his young age and the immaturity he displayed. From what I gathered regarding Whitmore before the draft, he had no issues with his drive, don't know about his conditioning.

Watch on YouTube

As for Whitmore, he's been tearing up the d-league, and since he's been called to play for the Rockets he showed he can score in bunches in limited minutes. My personal impression watching him before the draft is that he has star player potential, which is something I haven't seen from the rookies we drafted (I'll peg George as a wildcard as he is offensively gifted but his efficiency concerns me. I do like his intangibles though). I can't say for certain what he'll become but I think the upside is clear. A very athletic player with good handles, good shot, good offensive instincts, strong frame and also has defensive potential. Very young. Seems like a very good prospect to me. I think that at the very least he'll be a good scorer off the bench, but his ceiling is much higher. I think that if he won't have any health\injury concerns, a lot of teams will regret not drafting him, including the Jazz. I think he'd be a pretty good fit at the SG/SF spot.

A guy in our draft forum claims to have team contacts and that the workout was GG.