Although a lot of Mock Draft makers are predicting that the Jazz are going to pick a center, Kevin O’Connor has repeated many times that they always draft the Best Player Available, rather than drafting for need. If both of them match, that’s great, but the Jazz will not draft a big man at 23 just because they need a big man.
That’s not to say that they never draft for position though.
They drafted Deron Williams because they needed a point guard, they knew he would be gone by 6 so they traded up to where the best player available WAS Deron Williams.
Even though mock drafts are predicting that good big men will be available by the 23rd pick, other teams tend to draft big if given the opportunity and there is a good chance that centers available by the 23rd pick won’t be worth picking over guys that will have dropped because of other teams stretching to pick big guys.
Why might the Jazz choose to pick a point guard than a center if a point guard is the best player available?
They already have a very good point guard, but you never know what your roster is going to look like a couple of years from now. If Deron Williams bolted, a good point guard might be valuable. If he went out with a season-ending injury, a good backup would be very desirable. A good point guard would be much easier to involve in a trade than a mediocre center, if you wanted to use him as trade bait for a nice pickup at another position.
Why not just pick a center if it’s all a crap shoot anyway?
Centers typically take longer to develop than guards and swingmen. It might be better to pick up a center who has been in the league for a few years in free agency than to wait a few years for a rookie to develop into a decent low post presence. The years of the rookie contract aren’t likely to be productive years for a center on a good team like the Utah Jazz. They likely won’t be good enough to play productive minutes until their fourth year unless they are a top 5 pick if they are a center.
What are other options?
Free agency or trades might be a great option. There are likely some pretty decent restricted and unrestricted free agent centers who have just completed their rookie contracts who would be much more valuable than any rookie centers that you could pick up at 23rd in the draft. Some teams like New Orleans and Seattle have a plethora of young big men who haven’t yet proven themselves but are young enough that they still might. Like sportswriters often remind fans, Jermaine O’Neal didn’t become a dominant big man until he had been in the league for a few years and had been trade to a different team. Tyson Chandler (with Chris Paul passing to him) could be another, more recent example. With centers only a year removed from High School, this tends especially to be true.