Who do the Jazz take at 3? Who do the Jazz take at 12? Do they draft the 3rd pick with the 12th pick in mind? Or do you pick the "best available?" For that matter, who is the best available? In my opinion you follow what has historically worked for not only your franchise, but in the league for years. Let me back up and I'll get back to this in a moment.
I'm not going to give a Mock Draft here. They are all over the internet by people who know a lot more than me about these players. I'm going to say what I hope doesn't happen in this draft, but looks more and more like it will happen. It looks like the Jazz are going to be picking Brandon Knight at 3 and a front court player at 12. I have seen Centers, Power Forwards and Small Forwards all in that spot.
There is an idea in the NBA that scoring Point Guards win. I don't believe it because I've never seen it. Magic Johnson was an anomaly so I don't want to here about him in this argument. Isiah Thomas had to have the perfect defensive team built around him to win it in Detroit (Dennis Rodman again). Other than those two though, no PG has been the focal point of the teams offense and the "star" of the team and have it work. Let's go back a little.
If we go back 20 years, that puts us at MJ's first in 1991, but let's go back 5 years before to 1986 with the Celtic's last of that era. They beat the Houston Rocket's led by Hakeem Olajuwon with an aging team starring the one and only Larry Bird. After that, you have the Lakers led by Magic and Worthy, and than the Detroit Bad Boys with Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas (Rodman x2). After that is the Bulls for 6 of the next 8 and MJ was the leader with Scottie Pippen as the leaders of those teams (Rodman x3). The other 2 years, Hakeem's Rocket's.
Enter the post Jordan era in the NBA. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry, I fell asleep again thinking about those early years. But here we go, Tim Duncan's Spurs in '99, '03, '05 and '07 (the only year when someone other than Duncan dominated that team). The Laker's winning 3 in a row with Shaq and Kobe starting in 2000 and going on to the Celtics, the Heat, the Pistons, more Lakers and on into this year with Dallas winning it. The Piston's were the only team dominated all year long by a point guard. His domination though is not the same as what some would have you believe. His domination was not in using up possessions in trying to score as much as he could, he dominated by setting up a good offensive scheme and taking the RIGHT shots. Before the pair of Piston guards, you have to go back to Dennis Johnson with Seattle in '79 before you find a team that won the NBA championship with a dominant PG. His contributions were also of a different nature than what is perceived today as a good or even great PG. His were the records that John Stockton broke, steals and assists.
So why is it that all these young PG's want to be the next Daron Williams? Why don't they want to be the next Stockton, Dennis Johnson, Steve Nash, Marc Jackson, or Gary Payton? Hell, if I was an up and coming PG, I'd settle for the next Steve Kerr. He was a five time NBA champion. 3 with the Jordan Bulls and 2 with the Duncan Spurs. I mean who can forget the story of Phil Jackson calling a play at the end of game 6 in the '97 finals and Jordan grabbing Kerr after the TO and saying "they are going to double me, be ready and hit the shot."
For that matter, why are organizations going after these guys with the shoot first mentality? Where has that gotten these PG's in the recent past? D-Will got the Western Conference finals once, Chris Paul has yet to get there. What about Ty Lawson? Not even that close. OK, the younger guys, look what happened to New Orleans this year when the Mavs crowded the passing lanes and confused Westbrook. What about in the east? Derrick Rose may be the one to buck my theory... eventually. But not yet. His team got beat when they faced a team that actually played defense.
I think that to win in the NBA you need 3 things. 1 guy in the middle to mess with the other teams psyche on either end of the court, a distributer in the back court to get the ball to the real playmakers and a dominating wing player. Take this years Mavericks. Dirk Couldn't win the whole thing until Tyson Chandler got there. Great defensive player who can score when needed. With Jason Terry on the wing to open the middle for Dirk and Jason Kidd feeding them the ball, winning combo. And don't tell me the Bulls lacked a middle man. Dennis Rodman is in my opinion one of the most under rated 4's in the history of the game. Steve Kerr once said that with the "worm" under the basket, who wouldn't shoot with confidence? If you missed, he just took the ball out of the air and gave you another shot. That's also why I don't think the Heat will win until they figure the down low issue out. They have 3 players that are all the same, wing players who love the mid range jumper. We can go the Celtics here with Garnet, Pierce and Allen (Rondo was huge here, as a passer). We can go Lakers with Fisher, Kobe and Gasol and before that Fisher, Shaq and Kobe. Go back and look, almost every PG that has won an NBA title has been the "oh yah, I forgot about him" guy on the team.
We here in Utah were spoiled by having the best prototypical PG in the history of the game in Stockton and we took what we had for granted. The issue the Jazz had was they never had that 3rd piece until it was almost to late. Plus they ran into the buzz saw that was 23. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but you even look at the teams that lost most of these finals. The teams that repeated all had the same combo. The teams that showed up one year just to go back to the obscurity that is the middle ground of the NBA are the teams that thought they could buck the system. I.E. The Nets (with a younger, Kidd and Harris), the 76ers (AI), I would place the Sonics here too, except they had Payton, Kemp and Schrempf. So they had the combo that worked, but when they got to the finals, they were awestruck by the Bulls and were completely out matched. I mean Gary Payton asked MJ for his auto graph after Game 1.
All in all, I guess I am saying that I think the Jazz are in for another D-Will type era if they draft another scoring PG and I'm not really looking forward to that. But I would love feedback to see what you think and who you think they should get.
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