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NBA Finals 2016: Golden State Warriors to host Cleveland Cavaliers and no one cares - The Downbeat #1924

Another day, another six potential draftees show their stuff

By AllThatAmar
Both of these tweeners have more rings than Karl Malone
Both of these tweeners have more rings than Karl Malone
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA Draft, the NBA Finals, the Olympics . . . and creating problems where problems currently do not exist. It's another day in the life of a Utah Jazz fan.

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The Utah Jazz are working out 6 more players today, pushing the grand total to 40 players looked at so far.

The prize in this workout is Notre Dame forward Zach Auguste, who projects to maybe be taken in the late 2nd round. Big combo guard Alex Caruso from Texas A&M is also a bubble draft pick, but mostly just seen on Big Boards, and not actually mock drafts. The only other guy of note is Andrew Andrews, a point guard from Washington. The heart really doesn't beat that quickly for any of these guys -- but the dream of a three and D guy is still there. You know, I love trying to find value at the #42, #52, and #60 spots (after all, these are your assets, you should still try no matter what). But I think that at some point the Jazz need to start working out guys who could go #12.

The best players the team has worked out so far are Demetrius Jackson and Thon Maker -- both who could (and should) slip out of the lottery.

I'm confident in their scouting department, I am a little antsy and would like some of the bigger fish to be at least in town at some point before draft night.

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As for the NBA Draft, I am waiting for June to come around before I actually post stuff about it. I am lazy. It's been a crazy month. Also, I'm just not excited for another #12 pick again. Doing the whole Free Agency / Utah Jazz cap space investigation took a lot out of my sails when I realized just how quickly things go from "we are a young team with guys on rookie contracts" to "oh my, are we really going to be playing three bench players at least $10,000,000 a season?"

That doesn't mean I'm not hyped for some of the players in this draft class. It's going to be very interesting to see what Dennis Lindsey does. It may tell us of a little of what to expect for free agency as well. I really think it would be SAD to draft another point guard. That would mean that the team has drafted / traded for FIVE point guards in four drafts (Trey Burke 2013, Raul Neto 2013, Dante Exum 2014, Olivier Hanlan 2015, and New Guy 2016). At some stage one of them should pan out. And I need to ground myself a little on my Dante Kool-aid. He's not going to turn into Penny Hardaway overnight. And if he wasn't playing like Penny already he may never play like him -- regardless of whatever physical similarities they share in terms of first step or length. Dante may not end up being an All-Star, but I think it would just be specifically bad if Utah has to go scrape up another PG again from the NBA Draft.

I can be wrong about this, and I'm okay with being wrong.

A number of Draft Experts like the idea of adding another PG to our group. And there's only 48 minutes available a game -- a lotto pick PG may not be the best move. Of course, the other grand realization that came to me this off-season is that Dante is going to have to play a lot more at shooting guard than we may have first envisioned. Jazz head coach Quin Snyder loves his boy Shelvin Mack. Shelvin is still going to finish this next season playing close to, if not more, than half the game. That means pushing Dante to shooting guard. That's a clever way to improve wing depth, for sure. But I don't know if I want to see him playing more than 8 minutes at the wing right now. But again, that's just opinion on my part.

With point guard being such a weakness it would be too hasty to make it weaker in order to make the wings stronger.

It's a great idea, but I think the practical applications will fall flat. After all . . .

. . . he's a point guard.

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Speaking of Dante Exum, and tangentially Australia, there's always more Joe Ingles news during an Olympic year!

There's a good quote there by Joe. And the sentiment is that this is Australia's "best ever" club. I'd have to agree with that. One thing we're not getting a lot of is talk about other Jazzmen representing their countries this year. It's a given for Raul Neto, who will come off the bench for host nation Brazil. But nothing from the Canadian camp about Hanlan or Lyles. Croatia hasn't released their full roster yet, but we are assuming that Ante Tomic *spit on ground like an old-timesy frontiersman* will be there for the pre-tournament.

As far as we know, Rudy Gobert is not tipping off for France right now either, choosing to stay somewhat out of harm's way.

Gordon Hayward has a slim chance to make the Team USA squad, and as a homer, I think he should. A number of stars will probably shy away from Brazil this year because they are afraid of mosquitoes.

If Gordon is asked because there's an opening, should he play? If so, does this create a double standard in your mind about if Jazz players should play or not? (It's okay if it's for Team USA, but not okay for other countries?) Or is there no debate in your mind on the subject?

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Do you like downloading superfluous Apps just to watch videos of your favorite stars and athletes? No? Okay. But what if you got to see Trey Lyles run around and stuff? Is that worth it?

Maybe.

Check it out up there.

Oh, it's also Matt Harpring 's birthday today. Behold the magnificence!

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So the NBA Playoffs have just four to seven more games in it, and then the 2016-2017 season will end. The NBA Finals is set up to be a rematch of the 2015 Finals -- ostensibly one where LeBron James actually has a supporting cast this time of healthy guys (Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, etc) going up against the defending champs, the Golden State Warriors and their collection of three point marksmen Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and apparently everyone else on their team. I can't be neutral in this regard, as one of my most detested teams will always be the Dubs. (Seriously? You're rooting for the franchise that used tricks and gimmicks to eliminate Jerry Sloan from the playoffs twice? You're rooting for the team that submitted to thuggery after they knew they were beat -- days after having Baron Davis dunk on Andrei Kirilenko and then had him lift up his shirt and expose his nipples to the crowd like he is Kenyon Martin? This is the team you are rooting for? Are you even a Jazz fan? Do you even know your history? Mark Jackson tank-a-palooza where they made sure to get called for goaltending on last second shots to make sure they lost and didn't have to give the Jazz a lotto pick? These guys are your heroes?)

I hope LeBron James dominates them, he should have won Finals MVP last year . . . his efforts were equal to that of Jerry West, the only other guy to win Finals MVP while being on the losing end of the series.

But that's just me. What do you think? Who are you rooting for?

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