Why Jazz selected Kyle Filipowski in second round – Deseret News

Kyle Filipowski has mentioned many instances that he has tried to mannequin his recreation after Utah Jazz ahead Lauri Markkanen. Serendipitously, the 2 will now be teammates.

The Jazz drafted Filipowski, a sophomore heart out of Duke, with the thirty second choose of the 2024 NBA draft.

“Simply how skillful he’s and the way cellular and the way effectively he strikes at that peak is one thing I positively attempt to mannequin my recreation after, as a result of I feel that’s what makes him such a particular participant,” Filipowski mentioned of Markkanen on Thursday night time. “Simply with the ability to have this chance to play alongside him and be taught from him on daily basis, I’m tremendous grateful for this chance. I’m wanting ahead to benefiting from it.”

There’s definitely motive for Jazz followers to be excited concerning the addition of Filipowski to this present roster. Bear in mind when the Jazz had Kelly Olynyk on the crew with Walker Kessler and Markkanen — that front-court lineup that gave the Jazz a ton of versatility in addition to some actually intimidating size? It’s not an enormous stretch to suppose that Filipowski may add the identical form of depth to the Jazz’s frontcourt in time.

Although Filipowski performed heart in school, he doesn’t profile as a standard rim-running, rim-protecting large. However, in the identical vein of Olynyk, he is a great assist defender who’s surprisingly good at staying in entrance of his man; he’s gifted with the ball and might do all of the issues that make stretch bigs helpful in as we speak’s NBA.

At 6-foot-11, Filipowski can dribble, cross, shoot, run both aspect of a pick-and-roll, he units nice screens, is an effective cutter, reads the ground effectively and might pick-and-pop. He has a terrific NBA body and as he fills it out, he has potential to grow to be a robust participant on the rim, however he does must develop a bit to have the ability to play towards stronger gamers within the put up.

“We got here into as we speak, hoping to draft Kyle Filipowski,” Jazz vice chairman of analytics Shane Fenske mentioned on Thursday. “We had been tremendous thrilled that we had been in a position to do it. He’s an excellent versatile 7-footer who can cross, shoot and actually impacted profitable for a terrific Duke program.”

Many believed that Filipowski can be off the draft board earlier than the tip of the primary spherical, together with everybody within the Jazz entrance workplace. Some experiences have indicated that Filipowski was nervous through the pre-draft course of. However the Jazz entrance workplace weren’t anxious about something and didn’t see any pink flags with Filipowski.

“We do deep background on all of the draft prospects to ensure that we’re in the end comfy deciding on them,” Jazz vice chairman of basketball technique Steven Schwartz mentioned. “We’re very happy to have Kyle be a part of the Jazz, and we’re comfy with the whole lot. We’re enthusiastic about who he’s as an individual, so we’re not involved.”

In his second season with the Blue Devils, Filipowski averaged 16.4 factors, 8.3 rebounds and a pair of.8 assists per recreation whereas taking pictures 34.8% from 3-point vary — which was an enormous enhance over his taking pictures numbers from his freshman season when he hit on simply 28.2% of his treys.

The Jazz have been finding out Filipowski for a lot of years and they’re assured that his shot development is actual and can translate effectively to the NBA. He’ll want time to develop into a robust and dependable NBA participant, however on first look it appears the Jazz received nice worth with a second-round choose.