NBA Draft 2014: Where potential turns into production -- a look at Carrick Felix and #33 draft picks

Not every team is able to entice players to join their squad in free agency. In the case of the Utah Jazz, very few players have decided to take their talents to "Salt Lake". Trades happen, and the draft is a must, but they are much more important to the Jazz than free agency -- the team couldn't even get players to join them back when John and Karl were on the team. BECAUSE trades and the draft are more important let's take a look at each major piece we have on the team today, and try to see where they are in terms of the potential vs production axis.

The Utah Jazz have a #33 draft pick guy on their team, Carrick Felix. Felix is a solid defender who hasn't gotten a lot of burn so far in his NBA life. Even though he was sent down to the D-League a few times he didn't get to play in many games either. So he's raw. He's inexperienced. But how does he stack up against the last four decades of #33 picks?

Yeah. Unlike the #55 pick and the #35 pick we have a lot of NBA players picked at #33. In fact, 37 of the last 40 guys picked here were NBA players. Sadly, it is a really mixed bag where only 14 of that group of 37 made it to their fifth year in the NBA. Nearly half of the group of 40 draft picks were out after two seasons. And unlike the magical, recency bias at #35, there is no forward momentum here within this draft spot. The three best players from the last decade are Brandon Bass, Dante Cunningham, and Kyle Singler. There's a 15 year span between those guys and the last time there were solid guys here -- Kevin Duckworth and Grant Long in the mid to late 80s.

For the record the average player here plays 19.2 mpg, and gets 6.9 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 1.5 apg, and 0.7 spg. It's not bad. What IS bad, on the other hand, are the last 20 and 10 years of this pick. (I have the splits for those guys too, but it's not really worth mentioning) The average here is for a player to play 600+ minutes in their rookie year and then 700+ minutes in their second. Carrick Felix is way behind because he played only 38 minutes last year.

No, not 380 minutes. But 38. There have only been 5 guys over the last four decades of the #33 spot who played fewer rookie minutes: Larry Fogle ('75), Jay Edwards ('89), Jerome Beasley ('03), Joey Dorsey ('08), and Hassan Whiteside ('10).

Carrick looks to remain behind the curve as well as, just at shooting guard, I have him behind Gordon Hayward, Alec Burks, Dante Exum, and Ian Clark on the depth chart. I like Felix, but he's probably going to see more playing time at small forward this year, if at all.

For his "career" he has averages of 2.7 ppg, 0.9 rpg, and 0.6 apg. You can't produce unless you're on the floor. And getting on the floor is the problem here because he is one of the most efficient players when on it. (5th best BARPS / Min value out of these 40 players)

And really, you lik have efficient end of the bench guys. At the #33 spot you've had a former All-Star before (Duckworth), and a few solid rotation guys (even a few occasional starters). But against this group Felix hasn't yet has a chance to show what he can be. He's the Jeremy Evans problem, but with less flashy dunks.

Time will tell who this guy is, but right now I think he should be one of the best players on the Idaho Stampede. He's no Kyle Singler or Brandon Bass -- but those guys have played a lot more minutes than he has. Singler went for 2k every year in the league. Bass, who bared played in his first two seasons, got a big jump in his third, fourth, and fifth and became a rotation guy. There's hope for Carrick. I think he has the tools to be a rotation guy if he gets a chance.