What? An actual Syncopation on Sunday? Is this the rapture? Nope, it's just our European Vacation.
- The NBA Draft is still ‘basically’ three weeks away (actually only 18 days now), but I’m pretty much done. The Jazz Brass aren’t going to do much in the way of ‘real workouts’ until after their European vacation. Have you looked at the list of Euros who are on the board? According to one list they are:
- Jan Vesely, Czech Republic, Top 5
- Jonas Valanciunas, Lithuania, Top 10
- Dontas Motiejunas, Lithuania, Top 20
- Nikola Mirotic, Serbia, Top 25
- Davis Bertans, Latvia, Top 30
- Dojan Bogdanovic, Serbia, Top 50
- Joffrey Lauvergne, France, Top 60
- Tomislav Zubcic, Croatia, Top 60
- Robin Benzing, Germany, Top 60
- That list doesn’t included Enes Kanter (Turkey / Kentucky, Top 5), whom the Jazz worked out on June 3rd in Chicago. Nor does it include Bismack Biyombo, who played in Europe but, c’mon, he’s not European.
- There are two grand truths to that list of nine European dudes: the first is that none of them are really in range for us to draft (unless we trade down); the second is that the law of averages states that the San Antonio Spurs will find a starter out of that group. A third, obvious, truth is that we’re not the San Antonio Spurs. Yet the Jazz brass went to Europe to look at these guys. I guess one (or more) of them must be pretty good because I don’t remember the Jazz brass flying over to scout Europe en mass in previous seasons. I could be wrong, but I don’t remember KOC going to Europe the year we drafted Ante Tomic; or the year we traded for (on draft night) Kyrylo Fesenko; or any of the other years.
- If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me. It just seems crazy now, when there are a ton of American guys I’d rather look at.
- Especially when we only have two draft picks – and both are in the Top 15 range. Scouting guys you have little chance of drafting seems like, how do you say in English, a big waste of time. This seems like the ‘painful upgrade’ scenario again. Are we heavily scouting these scrub guys because we plan on bringing them into training camp – or is KOC and crew thinking three steps ahead towards trading back INTO the lower rounds in order to nab one of these guys? That seems like quite a radical departure for this conservative front office.
- I can’t really predict what this group is doing – but this is far from my area of expertise. I can wildly speculate though. Is this European ‘scouting’ trip happening because Walt Perrin isn’t quite sure about the movie "Just Go With it" and wanted to know if it’s better in Italian with Hebrew subtitles?
- A small part of me does want the Jazz to draft one of these guys just for the heck of it. You know you’d love it if a) Hot Rod was still doing the play by play, and b) the Rocky Mountain Review was still on just to hear him say "ohh, and a nice move to the basket there by (pause) Nicky Mitosis!"
- Sadly, both of those things are gone, and may we're better off not taking one of these guys. Maybe there are better uses for Hot Rod now, as well?
- Actually, ESPN should hire Hot Rod to do those spelling bees. That would be great, not just for the fact that pronouncing all of those South Asian names (check out the last decade) would be hell for him, but because the words in English they use would be hard enough.
Bigger stuff in the works friends . . . it’ll be worth it. It’s going to be a long off-season . . .