During the NBA Draft Combine the buzz about the Utah Jazz was that it was the perfect situation for one of the point guards attending to be in. In fact, Dennis Schroeder was coached to say that his favorite team was the Utah Jazz (or the Milwaukee Bucks depending on who he was talking to, as Mychal and I Hardy Boy'd our way into). Why? It's appears as though the Jazz were because Mo Williams, Randy Foye, Jamaal Tinsley, and Earl Watson are all free agents this off-season. Most draft websites had us leaving the draft with one or more draft picks.
In reality though we left with two . . . but traded for both of them at spots we weren't supposed to get: #9 (Trey Burke) and #47 (Raul Neto). We don't think Raul will be here next year, and really -- in this league -- it's all about the first rounders. (Sorry Paul Millsap, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur)
How many minutes (or games started) do you think Trey will get this year in this "perfect situation"? Well, historically we know how many minutes our first rounders get. Let's check it out!
NCAA | NBA Rookie Year | ||||||||||||
Player | Draft | Games | Mins | MPG | G Started | G Played | Mins | MPG | |||||
1 | Thurl Bailey | 1983 | 1 | 7 | 123 | 4002 | 32.5 | 54 | 81 | 2009 | 24.8 | ||
2 | John Stockton | 1984 | 1 | 16 | 107 | 3378 | 31.6 | 5 | 82 | 1490 | 18.2 | ||
3 | Karl Malone | 1985 | 1 | 13 | 92 | 2831 | 30.8 | 76 | 81 | 2475 | 30.6 | ||
4 | Dell Curry | 1986 | 1 | 15 | 126 | 4275 | 33.9 | 0 | 67 | 636 | 9.5 | ||
5 | Jose Ortiz | 1987 | 1 | 15 | 52 | 1865 | 35.9 | 15 | 51 | 327 | 6.4 | ||
6 | Eric Leckner | 1988 | 1 | 17 | 131 | 3808 | 29.1 | 0 | 75 | 779 | 10.4 | ||
7 | Blue Edwards | 1989 | 1 | 21 | 57 | 1863 | 32.7 | 49 | 82 | 1889 | 23.0 | ||
8 | Eric Murdock | 1991 | 1 | 21 | 117 | 3648 | 31.2 | 0 | 50 | 478 | 9.6 | ||
9 | Luther Wright | 1992 | 1 | 18 | 64 | 1150 | 18.0 | 2 | 15 | 92 | 6.1 | ||
10 | Greg Ostertag | 1995 | 1 | 28 | 137 | 3042 | 22.2 | 10 | 57 | 661 | 11.6 | ||
11 | Jacque Vaughn | 1997 | 1 | 27 | 126 | 3807 | 30.2 | 0 | 45 | 419 | 9.3 | ||
12 | Quincy Lewis | 1999 | 1 | 19 | 127 | 2938 | 23.1 | 0 | 74 | 896 | 12.1 | ||
13 | Andrei Kirilenko | 1999 | 1 | 24 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 40 | 82 | 2151 | 26.2 | ||
14 | Scott Padgett | 1999 | 1 | 28 | 122 | 2891 | 23.7 | 9 | 47 | 432 | 9.2 | ||
15 | DeShawn Stevenson | 2000 | 1 | 23 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 2 | 40 | 293 | 7.3 | ||
16 | Raul Lopez | 2001 | 1 | 24 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 11 | 82 | 1617 | 19.7 | ||
17 | Curtis Borchardt * | 2002 | 1 | 18 | 66 | 1426 | 21.6 | 0 | 16 | 258 | 16.1 | ||
18 | Sasha Pavlovic | 2003 | 1 | 19 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 14 | 79 | 1144 | 14.5 | ||
19 | Kris Humphries | 2004 | 1 | 14 | 29 | 990 | 34.1 | 4 | 67 | 873 | 13.0 | ||
20 | Kirk Snyder | 2004 | 1 | 16 | 84 | 2586 | 30.8 | 7 | 68 | 906 | 13.3 | ||
21 | Deron Williams | 2005 | 1 | 3 | 101 | 3200 | 31.7 | 47 | 80 | 2307 | 28.8 | ||
22 | Ronnie Brewer | 2006 | 1 | 14 | 90 | 2974 | 33.0 | 14 | 56 | 675 | 12.1 | ||
23 | Morris Almond | 2007 | 1 | 25 | 121 | 3279 | 27.1 | 0 | 9 | 39 | 4.3 | ||
24 | Kosta Koufos | 2008 | 1 | 23 | 37 | 1003 | 27.1 | 7 | 48 | 565 | 11.8 | ||
25 | Eric Maynor | 2009 | 1 | 20 | 130 | 3990 | 30.7 | 2 | 81 | 1269 | 15.7 | ||
26 | Derrick Favors | 2010 | 1 | 3 | 36 | 989 | 27.5 | 4 | 22 | 444 | 20.2 | ||
27 | Gordon Hayward | 2010 | 1 | 9 | 69 | 2285 | 33.1 | 17 | 72 | 1218 | 16.9 | ||
28 | Enes Kanter | 2011 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 0 | 66 | 874 | 13.2 | ||
29 | Alec Burks | 2011 | 1 | 12 | 68 | 2100 | 30.9 | 0 | 59 | 939 | 15.9 | ||
30 | Trey Burke | 2013 | 1 | 9 | 73 | 2605 | 35.7 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | ||
31 | Rudy Gobert | 2013 | 1 | 27 | 65 | 1114 | 17.1 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
N.B. Some of the college minutes data I am less than secure over, BBALL Ref has a NCAA page, but it's filled with gaps; and searching other college sites gives conflicting answers. So, let's just assume that this data is accurate-ish. For example, I can see a guy like D-Will play 30/40 mins a game in the NCAA. I don't know how sure I am with the idea of Thurl playing 32.5 mpg though. Time will tell . . .
Okay, so from this we see that the guys who usually come "ready to play" (e.g. have a lot of college minutes) may end up playing good minutes in their rookie years. There are exceptions of course, like in the case of Dell, Murdock, Jacque, and others. For the most part those guys came onto a team at a position where we were strong.
I don't think we've ever been weaker on paper at the point than we are now.
Of course, if Trey doesn't play 2k this year I'll be upset. But that's just me being crazy about a numbers game.
How many minutes do you think he'll play over the season or per game? How many games will he play or start?