Can The Utah Jazz Finally Hit Big In The NBA Draft?
Tonight at 6:00 Mountain time, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, will stroll up to the podium and welcome everyone to the 2025 NBA draft.
The next wave of bright young stars and future disappointments will be announced as round one commences.
The Utah Jazz, cursed as they are, will hold the rights to the #5 and #21 selections for tonight's action despite their best efforts to land a top 3 pick.
Despite inevitable disappointment of having the worst record in the association and still not landing a top 4 selection, its not at all bad.
The Utah Jazz will still have the opportunity to do something they haven't done in years, that being, make a selection with a top 5 pick.
Since 2005, the year the Charlotte Bobcats inclusion made the NBA draft a 30 selection first round, the 14 team lottery has seen Utah make 10 picks within those boundaries.
The Jazz have selected 10th or worse 5 of those times meaning that even when not good enough to make the playoffs the Jazz are typically too good to snag a first half lottery selection.
Counting the 2005 draft and onward Utah has had just 3 selections within the top 5.
In 2005 they took Deron Williams out of Illinois with the 3rd selection.
In 2011 they went with Enes Kanter from Turkey, also the 3rd overall pick.
And the last time they had a Top 5 go was the 5th overall pick in 2014, a year where they grabbed Dante Exum.
Since that 2014 season, the Jazz have had 4 more lottery appearances, one of which they traded: (12th in 2016, Taurean Prince).
One that did the franchise little good (Trey Lyles in 2015 at #12.)
And two that are still massive question marks in Taylor Hendricks (2023 #9 overall) and Cody Williams (2024 #10 overall).
As one can see, despite this being their third consecutive year trusting in the ping pong balls, Utah isn’t here often and they certainly haven’t proven they can land franchise altering, let alone franchise helping talent.
Fans may be a bit nervous for the franchises highest selection in over ten years, and it’s not hard to see why.
Going back to when the 14 team lottery began, the Jazz arguably have had two players they’ve selected in that lottery setup that have left a lasting mark in Salt Lake City.
The 2005 pick of Deron Williams at 3rd overall and the 2010 drafting of Gordon Hayward in the 9 spot.
When those two players were playing at their peak, there wasn’t a Jazz fan around who was bitter about using a draft pick on them.
This isn’t to pretend someone like a Donovan Mitchell didn’t exist with the 13th overall pick, but this topic is about choices the Jazz have made under their name with their awarded pick, not players they’ve traded for during the draft.
It’s been 20 years since D-Will and 15 years since Hayward, both players have now retired, so it should be fair to say the Utah Jazz are due for someone who brings a type of excitement that only a good hand selected draft pick can bring.
The 5th overall pick with this years draft class is certainly capable of reaching those levels, but after years of stumbles and unknowns in the lottery, fans won’t be holding their breath.
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