Hello SLCDunkers!

This is the time of year where fresh news is scarce, so I decided that infusing the site with some previews of what to expect from the Jazz roster this year would be a good way to make this offseason a little less desolate.

Over the next few weeks, I will be doing posts dedicated to each of the 10 best players (by my rankings) on the Jazz this upcoming season.

First off, here are the players that missed the cut and aren't quite in the top 10 players for the team next year in my opinion. Stats from last season are shown below each player.

#14. Dee Bost

#13. Carrick Felix

#12. Steve Novak

#11. Ian Clark

I'm hoping Clark can get a fair shake as the team's 3rd PG/SG this year and demonstrate his shooting ability, but for now he is the player just outside the top 10 on our team.

Without further ado, let us kick off the top 10 with our fan-favorite, high-jumping, dunk champion!

#10. Jeremy Evans, 5th season, 27 years old when season starts, 6'9", 196 Lbs, SF/PF

Picture Source: jazzland.blogs.deseretnews.com

Backstory:

Jeremy Evans' path to the Jazz rotation last year was quite the atypical one. He went to the relatively unheard of school (as far as NBA talent goes) of Western Kentucky University; Courtney Lee is the only other NBA player who played for the university this millennium!

In Evans' senior year at WKU, he was only 4th on his team in scoring, 2nd in rebounding, 4th in minutes, and 7th in usage.....not your typical NBA-level prospect, especially for a small school. However.......he was 1st on his team by far in blocks, PER, FG%, and WS/40. This combination of categories he excelled in is a result of his insane athleticism which is the real reason he was scouted at all.

I didn't see Jeremy Evans in any 2010 mock drafts at the time, so he very well could have gone undrafted if the Jazz didn't snag him with the 55th pick that year.

In his rookie year, Evans impressed fans in limited minutes putting on highlight blocks and dunks much akin to Gobert last season. His rookie campaign looked very promising in that we found a good diamond-in-the-rough late 2nd round pick. However, he went from 463 total minutes his rookie year to 432 total minutes for his 2nd and 3rd seasons COMBINED!

Luckily he finally got out of the doghouse last season with Millsap and Big Al's departure, freeing up the big man logjam, logging 1209 minutes this year. He played more than half of his career minutes last year and he held his own respectively, showing that he could be a consistent rotation player in the process.

Being a 6 point, 5 rebound per game big man with 50+% shooting and 15+ PER vindicates Evans as an NBA level rotation player and this was only in 18 MINUTES PER GAME. Let that sink in for a second because I think it is often overlooked. If Evans played 36 minutes per game (which probably won't ever happen), he could be dropping 12 point, 9 rebound games as his average. This is right around the averages of playoff-starter Robin Lopez this year, not too shabby at all.

What to Expect This Season:

Jeremy Evans has steadily been rising up the totem pole of role players in the NBA and will definitely earn himself another contract after this season's contract is up.

That said, it should be noted that it looks that Evans will not be much more than an insurance man riding the bench this season. This is not because of anything wrong that Evans has done, but because we appear to be back to a big man log jam minutes wise this season.

Here is a list of the bigs on the Jazz roster this season (their minutes last year in parentheses):

Derrick Favors (30.2 MPG)
Enes Kanter (26.7 MPG)
Trevor Booker (21.6 MPG)
Jeremy Evans (18.3 MPG)
Steve Novak (10.0 MPG)
Rudy Gobert (9.6 MPG)

With only 96 minutes per game to go around at the 2 big man positions, and about 116 minutes per game among the 6 names listed above from last season, math tells us that at least a couple of the 6 players in our frontcourt will get less playing time than last year.

Here is my guess of how these players will receive playing time in the frontcourt this season:

Favors: 30 MPG
Kanter: 28 MPG
Booker: 18 MPG
Gobert: 14 MPG
Evans: 6 MPG
Novak: 0 MPG

This guess may end up being very wrong, but my gut feeling is telling me that Evans is going to be the odd man out this year mainly due to Gobert's rising defensive talent along with the addition of Booker who was the 6th man on the playoff team Wizards last season.

With this in mind, this is my sobering prediction of Evans this year:

I could see him getting some minutes every now and then at the small forward position, but very rarely as Hayward appears to be the starter at SF for now. Gordon played 36 minutes per game last year, and his apparent backup Hood also looks to be somewhat NBA-ready enough to earn himself a good 10-12 minutes per game, thus not leaving much for Evans. Also, Felix may impress Quin in practices enough to get some playing time this year, however I wouldn't bet on it.

In my prediction, I assume Evans will get about 6 minutes of play at power forward per game and another 2 at small forward. We'll see how things shake out and if injuries heavily affect this at all, but call this my official August prediction for Jeremy Evans.

Conclusion:

I love Jeremy Evans, but with our current roster, I unfortunately just don't see Evans cracking 15 minutes per game this year unless one or more bigs (or Hayward) get injured for extended amounts of time.

I'm hoping he proves me wrong and has a solid contract year. If he can outplay Booker for the backup power forward spot, then he will definitely have earned it.

There is an outside chance that he gets 3rd string playing time at small forward behind Hayward and Hood.

Expect amazing advanced stats from him and more than respectable "per 36 minutes" stats.

Chance of him being with the team in the 2015-2016 season: 25%