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Utah Jazz were not done finding great value at the end of the 2nd round of the 2019 NBA Draft. The Utah Jazz were able to keep their original 53rd pick, and with it they selected Justin Wright-Foreman from Hofstra.
Utah is selecting Hosftra's Justin Wright-Foreman with No. 53, league source tells ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 21, 2019
Justin Wright-Foreman can FLAT OUT play. He's very very small. But he is a VERY good player
— Tony Jones (@Tjonesonthenba) June 21, 2019
The #Utah #Jazz have selected Hofstra's Justin Wright-Foreman with pick number 53. Foreman is a dynamic scoring guard who averaged 27 points per game and has a diverse array of shot-creation techniques. Below are some highlights pic.twitter.com/96nkk4FsVX
— DraftExpressContent (@DXContent) June 21, 2019
Here's Mark Deeks' take on Justin Wright-Foreman: pic.twitter.com/Q7nsrwSzn7
— Andy Larsen (@andyblarsen) June 21, 2019
Justin Wright-Foreman averaged 27.1 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.9 assists while shooting 42.5% from three his senior year. Tony Jones is right when he says the kid can flat out score. While Jarrell Brantley who the Jazz selected at 53 has a real shot at squeezing out some minutes in Utah’s rotation as they are starved for a stretch four, Justin Wright-Foreman may become the next Jazz player to play in the Jazz’s school of hard knocks—otherwise known as the Salt Lake City Stars.
Jerry Beach of FloHoops says that Wright-Foreman had to work hard to get to this moment:
Of course, shrugging off a slow start is nothing new for Wright-Foreman, whose ascension at Hofstra was the stuff of Hollywood screenwriters. He averaged just 4.1 minutes per game during his freshman season, when he scored a total of 44 points, and didn’t move into the starting lineup full-time until well into the CAA schedule as a sophomore.
“It just added more fuel to the fire,” Wright-Foreman said of his G-League Elite Camp debut. “It just allowed me to come out the next game and just be aggressive, because I don’t have two bad games in a row.”
Wright-Foreman climbed back up the radar amid a hectic workout season, during which he auditioned for at least 10 teams, including the local Knicks and Nets. On Wednesday, he visited with the Celtics for a second time.
“These last two months have been the most exciting two months of my life,” Wright-Foreman said. “I’ve just been flying all over the place, doing back-to-backs with the 76ers and Minnesota. Then I did the Lakers and Clippers within those two days, back-to-back. Then I did the Nets and the Knicks back-to-back. It’s overwhelming sometimes, but then it’s also getting you prepared for the back-to-backs that you have to do during the season.”
Welcome to the Utah Jazz, Justin.