2015: Jazz select Trey Lyles (12), Olivier Hanlan (42), and Daniel Diez (54)
If it’s hard to judge the quality of picks in 2014, the most recent draft class is even harder to rate. Several rookies had solid seasons, but it will obviously take a few years to determine who were the best picks.
So far, particularly in the latter part of the ’15-16 season, Lyles has looked like a good pick-up. With several injuries to Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert, Lyles had an opportunity to show his mettle. He responded by averaging 8.6 points per game on 45.7 percent shooting from the field in games following the All-Star break.
Lyles also shot a respectable 38.3 percent from behind the arc on the year, a formidable mark for a rookie power forward.
There are a handful of other rookies selected after Lyles who logged significant minutes on their respective teams, but it’s still hard to say whether they will end up being better than the Jazz’s selection. This includes Devin Booker, who many believed the Jazz would select (let’s hope the curse of the player selected after Utah’s becoming more of a stud doesn’t continue), Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Larry Nance Jr.
In the second round, neither Olivier Hanlan nor Daniel Diez made the team’s final roster this season. While it’s hard to say what players they should have taken otherwise, one player who stands out that might have been a potential option is the Indiana Pacers’ Joseph Young (who consequently was taken immediately after Hanlan).
While Young didn’t log a lot of minutes in his rookie season, he took advantage of his opportunities, including three double figure showings in the month of January.
For what it’s worth, Young was also voted the “biggest steal of the draft” by his draft class peers. Time will tell whether Young would have been a wise pick for the Jazz. The Toronto Raptors’ Norman Powell is another player who played relatively well in the 2016 NBA Playoffs and could potentially be a steal himself.
As far as the Diez pick, the 2015 NBA Draft is still so recent that no player picked after him or that went undrafted has proven to be overlooked by the Jazz, so there’s no way of telling whether the Jazz could have gotten more worth out of their 54th pick or not.
Who they should have taken: Trey Lyles (12), Joseph Young (43)
Next: 2016