via Salt Lake Tribune:
The NBA Draft is here. And the Utah Jazz will be big players in how they develop.
After a year without any draft picks, the Jazz have three in the first round this time around, at numbers 9, 16, and 28. At least for now.
Naturally, this became the year the front office decided not to disclose players coming in for practices and interviews. While some prospects inevitably spilled the beans themselves via Instagram posts, braintrust was nonetheless looking to gain a competitive edge by not giving away too much.
On Wednesday morning, Bart Taylor, vice president of player affairs for the Jazz, addressed a few members of the media to provide at least a little context on how the team’s operation has evolved since the season ended.
Taylor: “We have a lot of conversations constantly about ‘Where do you think your man is?'” “Where do you think they’re going?” With agents, with other teams. We’re trying to figure that out, even who [Wednesday], who might be there. And that way we can have those conversations [Wednesday, Thursday] lead to a draft of, “Well, if those two are in there, who are we going to take?” We’re trying to get all of that out so we’re not on the clock, like, “Okay, who are we going to take?” Then we have Ryan [Smith] Sitting looking at us like, “Do you guys know what you’re doing?” We try to find out all of it before so that we may look at least semi-literate.”