Woah, the Utah Jazz have a ton of draft picks in the next few years!

Yesterday the Utah Jazz took part in the NBA Trade Deadline madness, and managed to come out of it with another 1st rounder, and a 2nd rounder -- only for the price of Enes Kanter and Steve Novak! (What a bargain!) The Utah Jazz General Manager has been collecting assets ever since he came to the team, and as we've seen from his work on the last two draft nights -- he's not afraid to wheel and deal. Lindsey has traded up or back into the first round countless times, getting Trey Burke, Rudy Gobert, and uh, wait, it's less impressive when you discount the 2nd round picks that have provided a veritable bounty of players like Raul Neto . . . and . . . okay. So maybe all the wheeling and dealing seems more impressive than it actually is. I have complete confidence in Lindsey and his staff when it comes to scouting players and drafting the right guy. A lot of teams mess that up, and as of right now, under Lindsey, the Jazz are flawless so far.

So, how many picks do they actually have going forward? Well, the team hasn't traded any of their own picks away, so they don't owe any team anything. They have been using a few of their extra picks in recent drafts (two first rounders in 2013, three in 2014, etc). This is what Utah has as of the day after the NBA trade deadline:

Impressed? I'm more impressed with what he will be able to do with it.

Of course, the downer suggests that you can't be a team that lives for the draft year after year, you have to put those picks where your win column is at some point. So this brings us back to the misspent development of Enes Kanter in a way -- a learning moment for the franchise no doubt. Our team is growing up, the players are, and so are the guys in the front office and coaching staff. The Jazz fans also need to be a little less idealistic as well.

The team wouldn't be here if it weren't for those little Carrick Felix / John Lucas III, or Diante Garrett / Steve Novak type of trades. Trade early, trade often. Trade small, and build your team up through the draft. I like what the Jazz are doing, especially since they know they can only otherwise misuse their cap space by overpaying mercenaries who will move on as soon as possible.

Lindsey is finding Jazzmen. People who want to be here. And he's doing it in the best possible way -- even if it sometimes means having to go back to the drawing board to remedy an untenable situation.