<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">He is a 6-foot-11 big man from BYU, and he is on the Jazz's draft board. In fact, Rafael Araujo is high on the list. How high? Consider what Jazz owner Larry Miller, speaking with KSL-TV's Rod Zundel on KSL radio, had to say Friday night: If Araujo is available when the Jazz pick at No. 14 in Thursday's NBA Draft, Miller said, Utah will take him.</div> <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Reality suggests the big Brazilian could be gone by 14. But if he is not, Miller said, the Jazz will tap him ? no ifs, ands or buts.</div> http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595071586,00.html
He is more important to the Jazz right now than what Sergei Monya would be, and he should fit in well. The Jazz may just be throwing up a smokescreen, to hide someone else, but I think they're telling the truth in this one. With the right training, Araujo may be a great pick.
Rafeal Araujo could be another Ben Wallace type player, with better scoring skills, or could actually become our next Greg Ostertag. Sure this seems unlikely as we see him come out of his great college career, but we can't forget that Greg Ostertag was supposed to be something good when coming out too. However, let's look at his assets and be optomists. He's a <u>big</u> big man. By this I mean that he's not like Dwight Howard or Chris Bosh. He's tall and powerful. This is always more comforting when drafting a tall guy because you know he'll at least be a big body. He can crash the boards and had 18 and 10 at BYU last year. He seems to lack lateral quickness but that can be worked on and even if he can't get much quicker, there are worse things as a power forward that he could be lacking.
Ben Wallace? I don't think so, Ben is quick, agile and has speed for a big man, he's also extremely atheletic. Rafael Araujo is slow, not too agile, has decent speed, and isn't going to get off the ground much. He's not a good shot blocker, doesn't have good wingspan, and isn't good at rotating on defense. His defense is supposed to be one of his bigger weaknesses so he can't be a defensive stopper type player. Think Brad Miller, or Vitaly Potapenko.
Utah better really watch who they draft because they did a horrible job last few times selecting those 2 bum nobodys from Stanford.
