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The Udoka pick is the worst in team history

I judge the process/logic more than the result when it comes to the draft. Draft is really wild... there are obvious guys that end up sucking and guys that come out of nowhere.

So AB over Kawhi... not great because Kawhi was kind of a consensus top 5-6 guy but AB was a talented prospect who also became a solid player. Even Burke over CJ and Giannis... Giannis could have been Poku or Cabocolo... CJ could have been the mid-major flame out that had a solid but short run. I didn't love the Allen pick but it made sense. Even Lyles as much as I hated that pick there was an argument that he was the stretch do it all big that was hidden by a talented Kentucky team.

Its drafting a non-shooting big, when you already have a star non-shooting big, and plan on giving a big contract to a non-shooting big (right as the budget was getting tight). Bane, McDaniels, trading the pick were obviously better choices night of the draft.
 
Saint Cy of JFC said:
Yeah, after the pick was made. We both know as fans we do this thing called coping. Pre the pick everyone would have **** on the idea of drafting him.
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Very true.

Coping, defendable, etc. You're right - going into the trade, it would have angered most fans making that selection.
 
LoPo said:
I didn't think he was going to be that but people were defending the pick making claims that he had that potential. At the time of the pick, people weren't nearly as upset as they are now.
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Oh sir... you were not listening to everyone because I was pissed. And I even told folks that were loling me that we were going to sign another vet to play over him. Favs rumors were already out there in abundance. After it came down exactly how I predicted many of those folks disappeared. I was even cornered and asked which one guy I would have taken and I picked Bane. I'm not great at the draft but logic needs to be somewhat sound.

You can play multiple point guards, you can play multiple wings, you can't play multiple centers that can't shoot... the prospect almost has to be twice as good as prospects at other positions to get court time. Add in the comedy of trading TB and Ed and giving up seconds to do so on the same ****ing night.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Oh sir... you were not listening to everyone because I was pissed. And I even told folks that were loling me that we were going to sign another vet to play over him. Favs rumors were already out there in abundance. After it came down exactly how I predicted many of those folks disappeared. I was even cornered and asked which one guy I would have taken and I picked Bane. I'm not great at the draft but logic needs to be somewhat sound.

You can play multiple point guards, you can play multiple wings, you can't play multiple centers that can't shoot... the prospect almost has to be twice as good as prospects at other positions to get court time. Add in the comedy of trading TB and Ed and giving up seconds to do so on the same ****ing night.
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Don't get me wrong. I was pissed too. Not as pissed as when we took Burks over Kawhi, but really pissed. It was such an unnecessary pick. We didn't have to have Udoka. Just like we didn't have to have Favors at his contract.

I remember you vividly during that draft and not long after. You called us bringing Favors back. You knew, more than most around here, how bad that Udoka pick truly was.
 
Didn’t they say Udoka was top 5 overall on their board after taking him too?

Lost all credibility and closed the competing window for the team all at once.
 
Bawse Dawg said:
Didn’t they say Udoka was top 5 overall on their board after taking him too?

Lost all credibility and closed the competing window for the team all at once.
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Doka had insane advanced numbers in college basketball, so he was probably high due to some advanced metrics that factor in things that have to do with defensive rating. I doubt it was their actual big board, probably just a advanced stats metric list he was high on.
 
Still absurd that no one remember us taking Fesenko over Marc Gasol, who the Lakers dealt for Pau to complete that championship team. It was a history defining moment for Sloan and the Jazz. Coach Sloan was denied his last chance of winning the Jazz a championship because of this pick.
 
jom2003 said:
Still absurd that no one remember us taking Fesenko over Marc Gasol, who the Lakers dealt for Pau to complete that championship team. It was a history defining moment for Sloan and the Jazz. Coach Sloan was denied his last chance of winning the Jazz a championship because of this pick.
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What a reach
 
Udoka was an awful pick honestly. We needed a wing defender and we got another center when we had Bradley, Favors, AND Gobert. Really mind-boggling selection
 
jom2003 said:
Still absurd that no one remember us taking Fesenko over Marc Gasol, who the Lakers dealt for Pau to complete that championship team. It was a history defining moment for Sloan and the Jazz. Coach Sloan was denied his last chance of winning the Jazz a championship because of this pick.
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I mean if you'd like to get that wild we can talk about how we traded the #35 pick in the 2014 draft for cash considerations because we didn't like many of the players left in the draft, we didn't want too many young players, and Greg Miller wanted a few extra bucks so he could buy another sports car and get a lifetime pass for bleached tips at his favorite salon.

The 41st pick was Nikola Jokic and he stayed in Europe for one year... so you would not have had to roster or pay him. We could have the reigning MVP!!!
 
jom2003 said:
Still absurd that no one remember us taking Fesenko over Marc Gasol, who the Lakers dealt for Pau to complete that championship team. It was a history defining moment for Sloan and the Jazz. Coach Sloan was denied his last chance of winning the Jazz a championship because of this pick.
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I don’t remember anyone talking about Gasol at the time. I mean, he was 48th so it wasn’t like there was this large consensus there. The Gasol/Gasol trade wasn’t even Gasol/Gasol at the time because I don’t think anyone was thinking Marc would be as good as he was. It wasn’t until hindsight that the deal made sense. Everyone said Pau was traded for a Happy Meal and there was even discussion on how they thought Jerry West (who was with Memphis at the time) was just doing a massively lob sided trade for the Lakers at the same time Kevin McHale was helping out the Celtics by gifting them Garnett.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
I mean if you'd like to get that wild we can talk about how we traded the #35 pick in the 2014 draft for cash considerations because we didn't like many of the players left in the draft, we didn't want too many young players, and Greg Miller wanted a few extra bucks so he could buy another sports car and get a lifetime pass for bleached tips at his favorite salon.

The 41st pick was Nikola Jokic and he stayed in Europe for one year... so you would not have had to roster or pay him. We could have the reigning MVP!!!
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I mean we already have Rudy, Kanter and Favors on the team together during 2014's draft so there weren't really any space for another big man. We would definitely target players from 1-3 had we kept the pick. It's not like Rudy or Favs are complete scrubs themselves so Jokic would find it hard to get minutes. Plus as good as the Joker is, he couldn't deliver his team a championship so it's not like drafting him back in 2014 when we had Trey Burke as our starting PG was gonna all of sudden push us towards a title.

BUT in 2007, all we need was an elite rim protector to man the middle in a lineup that already features Memo/Booz/DWill/AK/Korver. As a Jazz fan, who really enjoyed watching Booz getting abused by Pau against the Lakers in the playoffs from 2008-2010? But an elite rim protecter, a DPOY caliber big man, could've tipped the scale of that matchup towards us. In fact, we did draft a rim protecting big man from Europe, so we clearly were looking at the right area. It's just unfortunate that we missed the right guy.

If we could go past the Lakers in any of those 3 seasons, that championship would've been ours.(we swept the Celtics in the regular season).

It's Sloan's legacy that we are talking about here, which is different from any of the picks we've mentioned above.
 
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Our first round pick this year, center Santi Aldama, that was traded for Butler had 36 points, 11 boards and one block in the GLeague tonight.
 
infection said:
I don’t remember anyone talking about Gasol at the time. I mean, he was 48th so it wasn’t like there was this large consensus there. The Gasol/Gasol trade wasn’t even Gasol/Gasol at the time because I don’t think anyone was thinking Marc would be as good as he was. It wasn’t until hindsight that the deal made sense. Everyone said Pau was traded for a Happy Meal and there was even discussion on how they thought Jerry West (who was with Memphis at the time) was just doing a massively lob sided trade for the Lakers at the same time Kevin McHale was helping out the Celtics by gifting them Garnett.
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i mean i don't remember anyone talking about Fess either. It's not like he's Luka or Ricky typa European Golden Boy. He wasn't featured in any of the mainstream European competition nor had he played against any of the top prospects in McDonalds or national teams. In fact, he had no experience whatsoever......

Marc, on the other hand, was already a player for a team named Barcelona then went on to win the MVP of the Spanish League.

ACB Most Valuable Player Award - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Yes, 28 other teams missed out on him but if you would ever have to choose between Marc and Fessenko, it was clearly a no brainer
 
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The Doka pick came at a horrible time. We were making a title run and we desperately needed the missing piece and it clearly wasn’t.
 
Bawse Dawg said:
Completely inexcusable in every way.

Giving away all the assets for Conley when CP3 was basically free is another killer.

If you had told me during Mitchell's rookie year, that he would become a legitimate top 10 player in the league, but I'd still be completely checked out on a Jazz season....

I won't say they are a terrible front office on a league wide level. But it cannot be disputed that at the critical moment(s) they absolutely choked. This era is going to fizzle out soon, and there will be some turning point moments to look back at. And for each one of them, I'm not sure our FO could have done a worse job. Any rando on this board given power in those moments, and the team is in much better shape right now.

Shame.
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Not sure why this needed to be brought up. It’s been talked about to death for over a year.
 
Someone here posted like 13-14 years ago how they had seen Fes at a Busts Rhymes concert in SLC and he was holding two beers and they said something about being surprised he liked him and he said something like “yeah Busta Rhymes big hero in my country.”

Maybe a shot of Busta is what the Ukraine needs.
 
I don't see how anyone can take seriously the notion that a 27th draft pick can be worse than Exum at 5, if the the 27th didn't play a minute.
 
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