Below is a list of the good second round picks from 1997-2007. What is keys is look at the age of most of them when they played on their opening night roster

2nd round draft picks
1997
Marc Jackson (7572) – 26 on opening day in 2000
Anthony Johsnon (15552) – 23 on opening day
Stephen Jackson (26216) – 22 on opening day
Alvin Williams (12610) – 23 on opening day
Mark Blount (13981) – 25 on opening day in 2000

1998
Ruebn Patterson (15955)- 23 on opening day
Rashard Lewis (31778) – 19 on opening day
Rafer Alston (19392) – 23 on openind da
Cuttino Mobley (27618) 23 on opening day
Greg Buckner (10895) 23 on opening day

1999
Manu Ginobili – (18605) – 25 on opening day

2000
Michael Redd (20104) – 24 opening day
Marko Jaric (11246) – 21 on opening day
Eddie House (12405) – 22 on opening
Eduardo Najera (11213) – 24 on opending (different team)

2001

Trenton Hassell (16278) – 22 on opening day
Gilbert Arenas (19351) – 20 on opening day
Mehmet Okur (18429) – 23 on opening day
Earl Watson (18504) – 22 on opening day
Bobby Simmons (11513) – 21 on opening day

2002
Carlos Boozer (20522) – 21 on opening day
Flip Murray (11077) – 23 on opening day
Matt Barnes (11936) — 23 – different team year later
Darius Songaila (9229) – 25 different team
Rasual Butler (14904) – 23 openind day
Luis Scola (11662) – 27 different team

2003
Jason Kapono (9068) 22 yrs old
Luke Walton (8828) 23 yrs old
Steve Blake (15635) 23 yrs old
Willie Green (11775) 22 yrs old
Zaza Pachulia (12929) 19 yrs old
Keith Bogans – (13064) – 23 yrs old
Matt Bonner – (10616) – 24 yrs old different team
Mo Williams – (17892) – 21 yrs old
Kyle Korver — (16074) 22 yrs old
James Jones (9182) – 23 yrs old

2004
Anderson Varejao (11126) – 22 yrs old
Chris Duhon (14706) – 22 yrs old
Trevor Ariza (12783) – 19 yrs old

2005
Brandon Bass (8057) – 20 yrs old
CJ Miles (7499) – 18 yrs old
Ersan Illyasova (6031) – 19 yrs old
Ronny Turiaf (6694) – 23 yrs old
Monta Ellis (15481) — 20 yrs old
Louis Williams (9955) – 19 yrs old
Andray Baltche (9289) – 19 yrs old
Ryan Gomes (13429) – 23 yrs old
Amir Johnson (6697) – 18 yrs old
Marcin Gortat (6069) — 23 yrs old

2006
Craig Smith (6826) – 23 yrs old
Daniel Gibson (8397) – 20 yrs old
Paul Millsap (12446) – 21 yrs old

2007
Car Landry (7654) — 24 yrs old
Glen Davis (7253) — 22 yrs old
Marc Gasol (9946) – 24 yrs old – different team
Ramon Sessions (8195) – 21 yrs old

Three mock drafts seem to be on top of things. Chad Ford of ESPN always does a great job, Jonathan Givony is terrific at Draft Express and Sam Amick has been working hard for SI.

Here is where they are similar or different

All three have the same top 5 players in the draft, Anthony Davis, Thomas Robinson, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Bradley Beal and Harrison Barnes, however not in the same order.

Amick has Beal #2 while the others have Robinson. Givony has Kidd-Gilchrist 4 the others have him 5 with Barnes 4.

The next tier seems to be Damian Lillard, Andre Drummond, Dion Waiters, Austin Rivers the wild card seems to be who will be #9 to Pistons and what order these next 4 will go.

Lillard is 6 to Portland from Ford and Givony but #10 to New Orleans with Amick.

Drummond floats at 6,7 or as low as 10 to New Orleans, Waiters is at 7 from Amick and Givony but 8 with Ford.

The first real debate seems to be Meyers Leonard, John Henson or Tyler Zeller as the next big after Drummond.

12 of the top 13 players are all the same on the three mocks. Amick has Marshall in the top 13 Ford doesn’t, and Amick doesn’t have John Henson in his top 13 whereas Giovony has Marshall at 13.

AFter the top 13 – the next set of players is Perry Jones III (14 on Ford, 20 on Giovony and 16 on Amicks) Terrence Ross, Moe Harkless, Jared Sullinger, Terrence Jones and Arnett Moultrie.

Amazingly, the top 20 players in the Ford mock make up for 19 of the 20 in Giovony’s (Arnett Moultrie out at 21 and Royce White in at 18) and Amick also has 19 of Ford’s 20 (Moultrie at 24 and White at 20).

The other way to say it is that Amick and Giovony have the same top 20 players and Ford has 19 of the 20.

This shows the top 20 of this draft is breaking very clearly into four tiers of players and the final 10 spots have also become a tier and most of the mocks have the same players.

Every year their are some surprises but this seems like the draft is taking some order for teams looking to make moves or enter into the draft at certain points.

PART 4 – FAVORS BY SHOOTING LOCATION

Derrick Favors is not an offensive player at this point in his career. This becomes more obvious when we dig into how he shots from location and more so when we look at synergy.

Favors does most of his work at the rim, but his shooting from outside 10 feet is tough. He shot just 22% on 10 to 15 footers and 28% on his 16 to 23 footer.
Looking month to month you do see improvement.

His shooting from 16 to 23 feet got better each month of the season as did his shooting from 3 to 9 feet. The increase in his numbers over the last 10 games of the season contrasting the season as a whole is a good sign for the future.

However, taking one final look at Favors via NBA.com it is clear how much he still must develop an offensive game and why despite what he says he may have to be a 5 not a 4 for sometime.

PART 3 – BY GAME CIRCUMSTANCES
• Favros was the same home and on the road. Strangely, he averaged 9.74 possessions on the road and 9.74 possessions used at home. He went to the line the same as home as the road.

• Favors was better against above .500 teams. His Locke Offensive ranking was 7.8 but just .7 v. below .500 teams.

• Favors Locke Offensive Rating by Month, January (3.3), February (1.2), March (3.6) and April 13.6. He didn’t get more possessions he just started making shots. In fact, he got to the line less in April than any other month.

• Favors was better as a started than as a sub – Locke offensive rating of 10.6 as a starter and 4.0 off the bench.

• Favors did little in the clutch but when he did he was good, hitting 11 of 19 from the field and all 3 of his free throws.

• Favors didn’t go to the line at all in close games

• Favors was best against Atlanta, Charlotte, Cleveland, Orlando, Portland and Philly.

• Favors struggled against Boston, Miami, New Jersey and Sacramento.

PART 2 COMPARED TO REST OF THE LEAGUE
Looking at the Locke Offensive Ranking we see Favors compared to other players who had comparable Locke Offensive ranking this season.

League average was 6.5 so these players are around league average and some slip below. Notice Al Jefferson is in this group.

One area of interest is Favors scoring opportunities per 40 minutes (SO) was 15.4 which is higher than many of these players. Other than the go to guys he is using a lot of scoring chances on the floor. This is good, it means he will be able to get looks and create points when he is on the floor more.

The 13.5% of possessions going to the line is also on the high end for this group of players.
Only three players in the NBA who used at least 9 possessions a game turned the ball over more than Favors, Tyson Chandler, Nene Hilario and Chris Kaman.

Kevin O’Connor is a fan of the simplistic but telling PTS/FGA. Favors had a 1.28 the best of any Jazz big men and similar to Marc Gasol (1.29) Chris Bosh (1.27) LaMarcus Aldridge (1.26) Roy Hibbert (1.25)

Derrick Favors is the 4th of our season in review pieces for Locked on Jazz. We will analyze each player in 7 parts

Part 1: Year Compared to Career
Part 2: Compared to the league
Part 3: Year via circumstances
Part 4: Shooting positions on the foor
Part 5: Synergy Sports
Part 6: His impact on the floor and what line-ups worked with him on the floor
Part 7: Comparative to history

As I mentioned with Gordon Hayward the second year class struggled as a whole last year. With a year’s experience of how the league works and what a full season really entails these players were unable to advance their skills in a structured environment. In turn, most of the player s had step back years instead of step forward years.

Therefore, I would anticipate the play we saw from these players in the latter half of the season is a better representative of what we can expect from them in the long term.
We can begin to see the jump in Favors game. Traditionally, players increase the most year 2 to 3 and in the case of some bigs it is year 3 to 4.

Favors numbers are remarkably similar year 1 to year 2. However, a 4.1 in 2011-12 is much better than a 4.2 the year before due to the lockout season. Interestingly, he didn’t get more scoring chances per game, but he did increase his turnovers a great deal.
His consistency at getting to the line shows that is legitimate at around 13% of his possessions. 13% is similar to Bynum, Marc Gasol, Brenden Haywood and Nene.

Looking at Favors career it is all very similar. He got less of his buckets this year off an assist as he was forced to make more plays for himself.

The most important number here is the improvement in his defensive rebounding %. The numbers last year were not acceptable for a big man, but this year he brought it up to 22.6% which is good and maintained his offensive rebounding rate.

Year 2 to 3 should look dramatically different.

Part 1 – Year to Year Comparison

Part 2 – Compared to rest of the NBA

Part 3 – By Circumstances

Part 4 – Shot Locations

Part 5 – Synergy Sports

Part 6 – How Jazz were with Hayward on floor and what position is Hayward

PART 6 – IMPACT ON JAZZ ON GORDON HAWYARD ON THE FLOOR.
This year the Jazz were considerably better with Gordon Hayward on the floor than off the floor and big change from his rookie year. This year when Hayward was on the floor the Jazz were +.47 for 100 possession and -2.5 when he was off the floor.

The Jazz were a great deal better offensively when he was on the floor 107.3 compared to 102 when he was on the bench, the opposite is true on the defensive end where the Jazz were better if he was off the floor. This may have a lot to do with who he was playing with.

Gordon Hayward on the floor with Derrick Favors and any other three player defensive rating is 99.4. Boston was a 98.8 and Chicago was 97.5, Philly 3rd best at 99. Gordon Hayward on the floor with Al Jefferson BUT NOT DERRICK FAVORS defensive rating is 110.1. Most of the time this is Millsap and Jefferson. Charlotte at 110.8 was the worst defensive team. in the NBA last year. New Jersey was 109.7 and Washington was 107 to put the 110.1 in perspective.

Those are incredible. The Jazz line-up of Jefferson and Millsap is a front court has been a defensive failure for two seasons.

When playing with his fellow young players things didn’t go so well. In the line-ups that played at least 5 minutes together this year when on the floor with Burks Jazz were -3.2, add Favors and they were -8.4 and add Kanter they were -11.4.

Gordon only had 7 line-ups that he played with for over 20 minutes this year that were positive. The two best line-ups he played with involved Millsap at the 3 and Hawyard at the 2. Then he was best with Earl, CJ, Paul and Al followed by Harris, Hayward, Carroll, Favors and Jefferson which outscored opponents 68-47 in 24 minutes last season. This was the best offensive unit that Gordon played on all year.

The 4 best offensive units (20 mins minimum) Gordon Hayward played on this year had him at the 2 guard rather than the small forward. Whereas, 5 of the 6 worst offensive line-ups Gordon played at least 20 minutes with had him at the small forward. 5 of the 8 best defensive line-ups Gordon played on also had him at the 2 guard. His 4 best overall defensive units all had him at the 2 guard.

This brings up the issue what position should Gordon play. According to 82 games.com here is how his production changed based on position

Jazz were +92 when he played the shooting guard and -44 when he was the small forward. This is almost entirely based on the big line-up. Jazz were +77 with Millsap at the three.

Interesting that Gordon shot the exact same % if he was a 2 or a 3. He allowed more points to opposing two guards but he defended the shot better. Overall, it seems to have very little difference.