June 20, 2011 — Chad Ford of ESPN is reporting that the consensus college basketball player of the year, Jimmer Fredette, has raised his stock so much that several teams are trying to trade up in Thursday's draft to get him.
"The Knicks and a handful of other teams are trying to get ahead of the Jazz [who have the No. 12 pick as well as the No. 3 pick]," Ford wrote.
Fredette impressed coaches and scouts at the 2011 NBA Draft Combine with his agility, speed, strength and offensive skills, and then he was praised after individual team workouts at New York, Phoenix, Sacramento, Utah and Indiana. Utah Head Coach Ty Corbin, for example, said Jimmer surprised him with his speed, played defense and showed his competitive nature.
"I think he's a more complete player than a lot of people give him credit for," he said.
The rumor mill has the Maloof brothers, who own the Sacramento Kings, wanting to pick Jimmer over some more traditional picks.
Larry Bird was said to be impressed by Fredette, and the Knicks and Nets both want him.
Utah fans have been burning up forums and message boards on the pros and cons of the Jazz's using a draft pick on the former BYU guard. Some say they will quit watching the Jazz if the team does not draft Fredette, while others say Utah would be wasting a draft pick by selecting him. Not even Jimmer fans had been suggesting that the Jazz should use the team's No. 3 pick on their hero until reports surfaced last week that Fredette clearly outplayed Connecticut point guard Kemba Walker in a Jazz workout that was supposed to be conducted in secrecy. Now some are saying Fredette might go No. 3 because he might end up being the next Steve Nash.
Long known for keeping tight lips on trades and draft choices, Utah might be using the rumor mills to its advantage, trying to deflect attention from players that team executives really want. Or perhaps they are so enthusiastic about Jimmer that they just couldn't help but praise him.
Former Jazz Head Coach Frank Layden, who was at the Jimmer-Kemba workout, said he thinks Jimmer could handle the pressures of playing before fans with high expectations.
My guess is that Utah will be involved in some trades involving its draft choices. I trust that Utah General Manager Kevin O'Connor will make moves that result in strengthening the team. Yet I hope Jimmer ends up in a Jazz uniform because he is so darned fun to watch and because could help the team address several of its problems, pinpoint outside shooting among them.
O'Connor has done extremely well in past drafts when you consider that most of his choices have been late in the first and second rounds. His highest picks so far were No. 3 in 2005, when he chose Deron Williams, and No. 9 in 2010, when he selected Gordon Hayward to boos from the Jazz fans watching the draft at the Jazz facility. Both men clearly have shown that they deserved to be lottery picks.
And then O'Connor robbed New Jersey last year of Derrick Favors in the Deron Williams trade and admitted he had ranked Favors higher than the No. 3 choice that the Nets had used to get him. Now Ford is reporting that if Favors were in this year's draft he would be "hands down" the No. 1 pick.
This is a roundabout way of saying that I trust O'Connor to make the educated guesses that go into the draft picks and/or trades on Thursday. One good thing about O'Connor is that he doesn't mind being second-guessed by rabid Jazz fans. If he thinks Jimmer is the best choice for Utah, we'll be seeing Fredette in a Jazz uniform.
Jazz fans like to talk about O'Connor is putting his job on the line by either selecting Jimmer and watching him do poorly or failing to select Jimmer and watching him excel. The Miller family, which owns the Jazz, have shown commitment to coaches and managers and realize that managing and coaching basketball is an inexact science because it involves predicting the behavior of humans, the least predictable organism on earth. Nowhere is this more evident than in making draft choices.
