The Jazz went into draft night with everyone telling them that they needed a shooter and a big man.

The Jazz landed one of the best shooters in the draft in Morris Almond, the 6′ 6″ guard out of Rice. Almond was third in the nation in scoring and has great percentages from the field and the three point line.

The Jazz, through a trade, also drafted Kyrylo Fesenko, a 7 footer out of Ukraine.

Shooter? Check!

Big Man? Check!

Title? Not so fast.

Quincy Lewis. Kirk Snyder. C.J. Miles.

Names ring a bell?

Morris Almond might very well be different — actually, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t totally given up on C.J. Miles — but there is one thing that people need to remember. The head coach of the Utah Jazz is Jerry Sloan. Jerry Sloan does not play rookies unless he has no choice. Or unless they force him to play them by working very hard, which rookies normally have a very hard time of accomplishing. There is a very good chance that Morris Almond will only see garbage time and get some good experience against similarly inexperienced opponents next year in the NBDL. That’s a huge problem because they need a shooting guard who shoots consistently, and they needed him yesterday. Actually, they needed him last year, but who’s counting!

Morris Almond is guaranteed money. The Jazz are locked into paying him for several years. At the 25th pick, he isn’t terribly expensive, but it does take away from the money that they can pay a free agent or give Deron Williams an extension.

Morris Almond takes a roster spot. The Jazz only have 15 slots, and they are usually reticent to use all 15 as it might prevent a trade or two from getting made.

Not that the Jazz often make trades.

Morris Almond doesn’t play defense — at least not that he has shown. Of course, defense is often secondary in college, so it’s hard to say if he can or can’t play defense because he wasn’t likely coached much to play defense, especially since he could shoot so well. Jerry Sloan is not likely to let that slide as easily as a college coach might.

I like the Fesenko pick much better.

Fesenko, being a second pick, ISN’T guaranteed money. If the Jazz don’t want to sign him, they don’t have to sign him.

Fesenko plays in Europe. He doesn’t even have to play this year. He could come over in a year or two, when the Jazz might be able to use him. That means that he does not take up a roster spot which might be better served on re-signing one of the Jazz free agents or a free agent from another team.

So here is where the Jazz are at.
 
They have a team full of young guys plus two veterans in Matt Harpring and Derek Fisher. 11 guys signed to contracts in all, including Morris Almond who is all but
signed.

They have 3 (or 4) spots on their roster for which they could sign some or all of their own three free agents (Araujo, C.J. Miles, and Dee Brown) as well as find another player or players (Morris Peterson, Jason Kapono, Jerry Stackhouse) or sign their second round draft pick.

The best move, in my opinion, would be to re-sign all of their free agents, who are not rookies and might get playing time with Jerry Sloan, and to sign Morris Peterson (or another free agent) for their “shooter”, who is also not a rookie and might get playing time with Jerry Sloan.

Doing that now, though still possible, means that you can’t pick up any players in a trade, limiting the number of trades you could feasibly do.

Sure, the fans loved the pick. Sure, the critics loved the pick.

But Kevin O’Connor isn’t in his position because he needs to please the critics or make the pick his fans want him to make. He’s in it so that the fans can watch a winning team, even if it requires making a hard decision on draft night.

Only time will tell if he made the right decision, but I’ve got to wonder if he has a big plan in mind or if he just picked Kirk Snyder again because it was Kirk Snyder.