Hey Utah, Temper Your Draft Expectations

The NBA draft is a magical time of the year.

Fans spend weeks even months ahead of time, selecting the perfect candidates who are most likely to rejuvenate or lift their favorite franchise.

Hope is abundant, futures look promising.

Then it all crumbles away when your favorite prospect is selected before your team has a chance or, even worse, when your favorite team ignores that prospect and selects someone you weren’t expecting.

Minutes of watching highlight reels now wasted, it can be a crushing blow.

Draft night is full of labels. In fact keep a close eye on tonight's 6:00 draft coverage on ABC/ESPN to hear some of these terms:

“Future Star”

“Immediate Impact Player”

“Developmental Piece”

“NBA Ready Skill-set”

Or… the one you wont hear tonight from the broadcast crew, but will be splattered throughout social media is “Bust”.

For every label you see, for every prediction made, for every disappointment or success to a fan, just remember one thing:

No one knows.

That’s exactly it, no one truly knows how the draft will go down.

No one knows how those drafted will truly ever perform.

Only time will reveal what was right or what was wrong, and the power of hindsight will always reign supreme in sports.

We love to view the draft as a hit or miss experience.

You either drafted a star or you whiffed on a player who never lived up to expectations.

It is quite possible, in fact more often than not, to draft someone who carves out a NBA career with a specific niche.

Against the wisdom of Ricky Bobby saying “If you aint first you’re last” I would like to remind fans that a draft pick can end up being a role player, a leader, a rebounder, a bench scorer, a defensive minded individual without being the complete total package.

Think of your favorite Jazz players.

Maybe it’s Derrick Favors, Joe Ingles, Ronnie Brewer, Greg Ostertag or a variety of options.

None of those players were superstars, stars or even an All-Star.

Yet their contributions to the Jazz still sit in the record books or are remembered fondly by fans.

A superstar is the goal, the necessity, but the likelihood of finding one is slim tonight.

Making it all the more essential that the Jazz try to find that player who knows and works hard at whatever their main task is.

Build the team now, find the star later, at least for this draft, this free agency class, and this point in time.

This draft is much too convoluted to nail down what even resembles the appearance of a “good draft pick.”

You cannot come across a mock draft from any major media source that agrees on the order of players picked for tonight.

For Utah Jazz fans alone, it is unlikely they've ever seen a draft with such a varied list of potential candidates.

Not helping is the realization that none of the 9 teams in front of Utah have any concrete ideas on who they want to select in front of them.

Years past, the #1 pick is a certainty more often than not, but it truly feels like we wont know until Adam Silver stands on the podium tonight. (Or a Woj/ Shams tweet is out 15 minutes before the draft starts, a great reminder to turn off your notifications if you actually enjoy being surprised.)

This draft class and this draft are a massive question mark all the way through, so for Utah fans whether it’s Dalton Knecht, Ron Holland, Cody Williams or anyone else, just take a deep breath and let it play out.

It may be right, it may be wrong, but more so than ever before, we really have no clue on how right or wrong it is.

The draft does require skill, an in depth scouting crew, and the right savvy to not only get the right guy, but to put your organization in a position to even have that chance to get that guy.

The Jazz will have every option on the table tonight as a team loaded with assets seeking talent. Drafting all three picks as they are, trying to move up or down via trade or something unforeseen could go down, and Danny Ainge and company will be giving it their all.

Regardless, out of all prior drafts, this isn't the one to get worked about, and it isn't the one to expect franchise altering acquisitions from, but due to that, it seems to be set up as the most unpredictable NBA draft in quite some time.

Tonight’s about embracing the unknown, which shouldn’t be an issue for Jazz fans who have already done it for two consecutive seasons.