Via the Salt Lake Tribune:
The NBA draft is here. And the Utah Jazz will be big players in how it unfolds.
A year after having zero picks in the draft, the Jazz have three in the first round this time, at Nos. 9, 16, and 28. At least for now.
Naturally, this became the year that the front office decided not to disclose the players coming in for workouts and interviews. While some prospects inevitably spilled the beans themselves with Instagram posts, the braintrust was nevertheless looking to gain a competitive advantage by not giving too much away.
On Wednesday morning, Bart Taylor, the Jazz’s Vice President of Player Personnel, addressed a few media members to provide at least a little context about how the team’s process has unfolded since the season ended.
Taylor: “We have tons of conversations constantly of, ‘Where do you think your guy is?’ ‘Where do you think they’re gonna go?’ with the agents, with other teams. We’re trying to figure that out, even as of [Wednesday], who might be there. And then that way we can have those conversations [Wednesday, Thursday] leading into the draft of, ‘OK, if these two guys are there, who are we taking?’ We’re trying to get all that out so that we’re not on the clock, like, ‘Well, who are we taking?’ and then we have Ryan [Smith] sitting looking at us like, ‘Do you guys know what you’re doing?’ We try to figure all that out before so that we look at least semi-educated.”
