I have been cursed by a witch to repeatedly travel back through time to relive every NBA draft. Fortunately, her spell sends me directly to the Utah Jazz war room on draft night and all the executives magically know I’m from the future and will do whatever I say. Unfortunately, the curse prevents me from seeing how my advice altered the future, as I am sent back to the previous year as soon as draft night ends.
June 26, 2008 – Madison Square Garden, New York City
Previous season:
The Jazz had a strong 2007-08 campaign. Led by a solid starting lineup of Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams, Memo Okur, Andrei Kirilenko and Ronnie Brewer, Utah won 54 games and advanced to the second round of the playoffs, before losing to a very strong Laker team in six games. (And there was quite a bit of drama involving Derek Fisher, which I completely missed because I was living in the Czech Republic at the time.) But things were looking up. Kyle Korver was added to a pretty decent bench that already included Paul Millsap, Matt Harpring and C.J. Miles. The only thing the roster was lacking was a really strong traditional center.
The draft:
Kevin O’Connor naturally sought to fill the one void on Utah’s roster. With the 23rd pick, he drafted a Greek 7-foot freshman from Ohio State named Kosta Koufos.
Sometimes general managers have special relationships with certain teams that they make an unusually high amount of mostly insignificant trades with. O’Connor’s special team was Philadelphia. Back in 2005, he sent them a second-round pick for a future one, which turned out to be the 44th pick this year. Not really needing or wanting an immediate impact player, O’Connor drafted a 7-foot-2 Croatian named Ante Tomic.
With Utah’s own 53rd pick, O’Connor repeated himself, grabbing another big man who could stay in Europe for a few years. This one was a 6-foot-9 Serbian named Tadija Dragicevic.
Analysis:
Koufos wasn’t a terrible pick. He lasted a solid decade in the NBA and he was even a starter for Denver for a whole season. But he only played in 84 games across two seasons for the Jazz before they packaged him in a trade for Al Jefferson. The biggest knock against Koufos was that two far superior centers were drafted after him. The very next pick behind him was Serge Ibaka, who went on to earn three All-Defensive First Team honors.
But the most intriguing player left on the board is DeAndre Jordan, who somewhat surprisingly slipped to the second round. Despite his glaring weaknesses — most notably his legendarily atrocious free-throw shooting — Jordan’s strengths earned him a spot on two All-Defensive First Teams, two All-NBA Third Teams, one All-NBA First Team and one All-Star Game.
Both Ibaka and Jordan would have been a massive upgrade over Koufos — and I don’t think they would have been traded away after two years. Ibaka is the safest pick, but I can’t turn away from the huge upside of Jordan. Would Jerry Sloan have been able to coach him? I don’t know. But I think it’s worth a shot.
As for the second-round picks, it seems like the Jazz never had any intention of bringing either of them over. Both of their draft rights were later packaged in larger trades that apparently needed one more slightly tangible asset. Which was a bummer to every Jazz fan (myself included) who had visions of another Kirilenko.
But even though O’Connor felt the roster was full, I’m going to have to insist that he use one of those picks on somebody who could come in right away. Utah’s second biggest weakness was the backup point guard position — Ronnie Price just was not getting it done. Luckily, Goran Dragic was available at the 44th pick. He was named to the All-NBA Third Team once and played in an All-Star Game. A player of that caliber definitely deserved to be brought in to training camp and given a shot to be Williams’ backup.
As for the 53rd pick, I’m going to honor O’Connor’s wishes to have someone who can wait in Europe for a little bit. But I will make an improvement: undrafted center Timofey Mozgov. He didn’t come to the NBA until 2010, and ended up having a rather similar career to Koufos — he even started a bunch of games for the Cavaliers when they won the championship. Assuming the Jazz don’t forget about him in Russia, he could have been a fairly decent player for them.
My advice:
1. Use the 23rd pick on DeAndre Jordan.
2. Use the 44th pick on Goran Dragic.
3. Use the 53rd pick on Timofey Mozgov.
I think that as long as Sloan only expected Jordan to grab rebounds and block shots, then he might have been pretty happy with him as the backup center. And I really do like Dragic’s chances of beating out Price for that backup point guard spot. Of course, I know that in real life, the 2008-09 season saw the Jazz collapse under injuries, a strained salary cap and personnel issues. And there’s nothing I could have done on this single draft night to prevent any of that. This advice was the best I could give before suddenly being whisked back in time again.
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