Looking through Utah's recent draft history, I noticed a trend that seems to just stick out: Out of most of the "Potential" guys that Utah has taken, you notice many of them have ended up being pretty successful NBA guys or have shown promise to be rotation players. But even their Euro, Ante Tomic, has shown promise to be a legitimate NBA guy if he can put some muscle on his frame. So it makes you wonder about what exactly is the source of these results. The first thing that comes to mind is that Jerry Sloan doesn't play rookies. So drafting these low potential, NBA ready guys like Morris Almond, Dee Brown, or even Eric Maynor defeats the purpose. These are guys that aren't going to get much better, but Sloan doesn't really use them right away anyways. While if you draft a raw guy like C.J. Miles, Fesenko, or even Ronnie Brewer to a degree, the coaching staff has been able to work with these raw talents better than your average NBA Ready guy. Next thing that could be the reasoning is maybe the scouts are putting in their work, and actually drafting good talent. Instead of shopping for players that "Fit the System", Utah are acquiring guys that are just talented and plugging them in. This seems to be a scenario Utah usually wouldn't do in the past, by taking the BPA. Of course this is just a small sample, but it makes you wonder what the GM will do this year now that they have the #9 pick. Would someone like Greg Monroe or DeMarcus Cousins end up being pushed more if they end up in a place like Utah, if they were able to move up in the draft? Or would it be safer to stay put, and settle for the likes of Cole Aldrich or Ekpe Udoh who look more like a Morris Almond type pick? Another route that could arise is that once Ronnie Brewer was dealt last year, Utah became a 3-pt shooting. Compared to past Jerry Sloan teams, Utah really started to let shots fly from beyond the arc with swingmen like Korver, Miles, and Matthews getting more attempts off of Deron Williams kick outs. This on top of Deron already taking 3.5 3pters a game and Mehmet Okur shooting 3's from the C spot, Utah was much more 3pt oriented. If they want to keep up such a trend, do they look at guys like Xavier Henry or Luke Babbit? Here's my predictions on what Utah's big board maybe look like: Assuming Wall, Turner, Cousins, Favors, and Wesley Johnson dont' miraculous slip to Utah: 1. Greg Monroe 2. Xavier Henry 3. Cole Aldrich 4. Luke Babbit 5. Patrick Patterson 6. Al-Farouq Aminu Utah just had a workout involving Xavier Henry, but a thing that seemed particularly odd was that KOC (Utah's GM) didn't mention him in his post-workout interview with the media. Utah typically is quite about guys that they like, and when you say "Luke (Babbit), Gordon (Hayward), and Aminu are in a cluster", but you leave out Henry makes you think he isn't rated the same as those guys. I might be reading way into this, but with Kyle Korver a free agent, Xavier Henry could easily plug into Korver's spot while adding a few other things besides shooting. If you do this, you cut probably 2-3M off your payroll since Henry is on a rookie scale, which could be used to bring back Boozer possibly. Just my theory and observation.
