Projecting the Utah Jazz Championship Window Part I

Player Development

Player development and drafting go hand in hand, and the San Antonio Spurs are a prime example of that. The Spurs won five championships between 1999 and 2014, largely in part to getting lucky and drafting franchise cornerstone Tim Duncan 1st overall. But there is more to it than luck for building sustained success.

To complement Duncan, the Spurs hit on their late draft picks, namely Manu Ginobili (57th overall) and Tony Parker (28th overall). To get any type of career out of that late of draft picks is a success in and of itself, but the fact that Popovich developed these guys into Hall of Famers is unbelievable.

Parker and Ginobili aren’t the only beneficiaries of the Spurs’ player development system. While Danny Green and Patty Mills were not technically drafted by the Spurs organization, they both signed with San Antonio very early in their careers. Luckily for them, that might’ve been what saved their careers. Both players were in and out of the D-League before relocating to San Antonio and becoming a key cog in their 2014 championship run.

The Utah Jazz front office is good about continuously scouting out talent that plays in high school, college, overseas and in the G-League (as evidenced by the franchise owning their own G-League affiliate). They’ve hit on a few draft steals of their own, like Mitchell (13th overall), Gobert (27th overall), Rodney Hood (23rd overall), and Paul Millsap (47th overall). They’ve also found diamonds in the rough who were originally undrafted prospects, like Royce O’Neale, Joe Ingles and Wesley Matthews.

In order to maintain the championship window, the Jazz have to keep hitting on late draft picks, G-League call ups, and training camp invites. Failure to do so makes for a fragile championship window. Just look at the Lakers and Knicks who relied too heavily on signing marquee free agents. The Lakers are only just now escaping their half-decade of a dumpster fire, and the Knicks are in the middle of their own troubles.

In building up a contender, Dennis Lindsey and Justin Zanik did a great job of not surrendering future draft picks. The only future first round pick the Jazz owe is one to Memphis that likely won’t be conveyed until 2022. The Jazz will get to pick twice in the second round in 2022, 2023, and 2024. The only way Utah gets left out of the draft in the near future is if they miss the playoffs this year, which we all know will not happen barring multiple catastrophic injuries.

Well, that wraps up part one of this series. So far it appears the Jazz are likely to stay contenders for this season and the next, and as long as Gobert and Mitchell stick around the Jazz can stay relevant in the playoff race. Stay tuned for part two of analyzing how long the Utah Jazz Championship window will be open.

All stats courtesy of basketball-reference.com