Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor and Sam Vecenie discuss why the Utah Jazz need to hold steady and draft best player available at 2. Check out the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
How aggressive should the Jazz be to move up to get number one?
not all that aggressive, in my opinion.
I, I, I, I love both Dabanza and Peterson.
I think I look at their roster and I’m just like, “Man, Darren Peterson makes a ton of sense to me.”
And I am somebody that, you know, when you’re trying to transition from When you’re a bad team, like a genuinely terrible team that’s restarting your rebuild, 100% you draft for who the best player available is, and you don’t think twice about it.
Like, the Brooklyn Nets, if the best player available on their board is a point guard, they should take a point guard even though they took three point guards last year, because they aren’t all that close to competing, right?
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Utah I think is in a bit of a different situation, right?
Because they have Jaren Jackson Jr., they have Lauri Markkanen.
I’m assuming they’re gonna re-sign Walker Kessler.
They also have Keyontae George.
They have a ton of really interesting young players in Ace Bailey, in Bryce Sensabaugh, in — I think Cody Williams showed some flashes later in the year.
We’ll see where that goes.
Kyle Filipowski, et cetera.
So they have like kind of a ready-made young group of bench players.
They have a veteran group of players who should be ready to win now.
I kinda love the Darren Peterson fit, but that’s also because, like, I think Darren this year at Kansas didn’t get to show some of the lead guard capabilities that he showed at Prolific Prep, right, where he averaged like six assists a game and was really, really impressive in ball screens and could make decisions reading the second and third levels of the defense.
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But, you know, I, I think that for some people mileage may vary on that, too.
So I, I get that.
I’m with you there.
I wouldn’t be overly aggressive.
And besides, if you really do want AJ Dabanza, it might end up being him at number two.
It’s very possible.
Yeah.
I would not necessarily rule that out either.