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The NBA Draft is only a few months away. The last two drafts have been exciting times for Jazz fans as Dennis Lindsey and the rest of the Utah front office has made draft day move after draft day move. Utah has been developing the youth, while picking up future picks. But the main thing is that all of these players, save for the obvious keepers in Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors, Rudy Gobert, and Dante Exum, are assets. And you can use assets, and the Jazz have shown a willingness to do just that. So what assets do we have?
While the Utah Jazz have assets to use and move if they want in all of their non-guaranteed contracts, Elijah Millsap, Jack Cooley, Bryce Cotton, and Chris Johnson; and while the Jazz have a legion of unused future draft picks it's important to also take stock of the other, actual player assets the team owns the rights to.
So let's quickly check up on what Ante, Raul, and Tibor (The ACB Three) have been up to this season across the pond.
| Player | G | Min | MPG | PPG | FGA | FG% | 3PT% | FT% | PPS | MPS | OPG | RPG | APG | A:TO | SPG | BPG | BARPS | / min |
| Ante Tomic | 51 | 1162.8 | 22.8 | 11.0 | 7.3 | 57.6% | 0.0% | 69.9% | 1.52 | 3.14 | 2.0 | 6.7 | 1.9 | 1.24 | 0.7 | 0.5 | 20.8 | 0.91 |
| Per 36 --> | 36.0 | 17.4 | 11.5 | 3.2 | 10.7 | 3.0 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 32.9 | |||||||||
| Player | G | Min | MPG | PPG | FGA | FG% | 3PT% | FT% | PPS | MPS | OPG | RPG | APG | A:TO | SPG | BPG | BARPS | / min |
| Raul Neto | 26 | 572.6 | 22.0 | 8.8 | 7.5 | 42.3% | 23.2% | 66.7% | 1.18 | 2.95 | 0.4 | 2.2 | 4.1 | 1.39 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 16.3 | 0.74 |
| Per 36 --> | 36.0 | 14.4 | 12.2 | 0.7 | 3.6 | 6.7 | 1.6 | 0.3 | 26.7 | |||||||||
| Player | G | Min | MPG | PPG | FGA | FG% | 3PT% | FT% | PPS | MPS | OPG | RPG | APG | A:TO | SPG | BPG | BARPS | / min |
| Tibor Pleiss | 47 | 602.2 | 12.8 | 5.5 | 3.6 | 60.5% | 50.0% | 84.6% | 1.55 | 3.61 | 0.9 | 3.7 | 0.2 | 0.29 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 10.4 | 0.85 |
| Per 36 --> | 36.0 | 15.5 | 10.0 | 2.6 | 10.4 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 1.9 | 30.7 | |||||||||
When you bump them up to Per 36 stats they don't look so crazy-hard-to-understand. Tomic is a legit bigman. He doesn't shoot too frequently (Minutes per shot is above 3!), but he scores at a very high rate near the basket, especially on offensive rebound / tip-ins / second chance points. He also dishes the ball and isn't sloppy with it. This season you could argue that his blocks are down, but hey, his team is still winning a lot of games.
Behind him on the depth chart is Tibor, who is very efficient at scoring (he doesn't take shots he can't absolutely make), I messed up the formula, so he's getting 0.9 SPG, but it shouldn't be cell shaded green there. My bad. He really doesn't play a lot -- so in basically Kyrylo Fesenko minutes off the bench is is efficient in one of the more competitive leagues in the world.
What about our point guard Raul? Well, he's not playing for a great team for a great coach. And he's, well, he's not making any threes. Why? If you've seen how his game has had to chance since switching teams you see him taking a lot more Gordon Hayward (2013-14) threes, and fewer Gordon Hayward (2014-15) threes. Not all threes are the same, and what I mean is that he's an adequate spot up shooter from deep. When he has to throw one up with the shot clock going down, with a defender on him, it's not so hot. Still, he's very, very handsome. And that counts for a lot.
If I was going to bring anyone ONE guy over it would be Tomic. If two, then add Neto. Tibor just isn't needed on this squad at all. Like, have you even SEEN Rudy Gobert? Point guard may be the largest problem going forward with Dante Exum and Trey Burke being projects. But from what little I've seen of Raul in his system over there in the South of Spain I don't know if he's the answer either. (Or Die Antwoord, for you rap ravers out there.)