Eamonn Brennan Likes Utah Jazz Pick Of Kyle Filipowski
your home for the best coverage of the Jazz UTS and cougars is right here on the Zone this is JJ and Alex presented by G2G bars on 975 the KSL Sports [Music] Zone welcome back everybody JJ and Alex 975 the KSL sport Zone Alex cury Mitch Harper filling in for JJ today our boou Insider for KL sports.com you can read his by line today breaking down that full Utah state report that they’ve uh informed Blake Anderson the head football coach of the intent to terminate his contract he’s got 14 days to react now and then uh then really things are going to get I mean that that football program’s got to turn out they got to come up with something quick they got to figure something out quick the interm head coach has been named but uh you wonder what that looks like is that a full year thing you would have you’d have to right sights and sounds of around the Fourth of July Mitch I mean we’re getting close to the Independence Day my favorite thing happened driving down the street in my hometown of kville Utah my hometown where we live now Fruit Heights the chairs and the tape oh that just happened today well no it’s out and I’m saying this was like was like June 2 it’s not just the but see now it’s not just the chairs being out now the tents are coming out and people are on their chairs hanging out this is what we do wow hanging out already this spot is saved seats taken that’s it’s it’s a wild time granted you do want to avoid having that person that shows up you know like 6:00 a.m. on July 4th tries to squeeze in you go uh that happened last year to me I’m thinking what wait a minute are you a chair putter outer what look I have I was never parade guy until I met my wife until you have kids too that’s the other addition my wife’s family it is tradition it’s it’s Murray July 4th that’s just what they do and I’ve adopted the tradition because I never had really July 4th Traditions other than eating hot dogs that the only tradition we had your parents like we had traditions my mom right now is just devastating come on we had Traditions I’ll put the chair out right now all right joining us on the program as we uh try to Wade through the uh murky Waters of NBA free agency and frankly what this uh what this Utah Jazz team is going to be doing going forward and what the rest of the offseason looks like Eman Brennan joining us buzzer by Eman is where you can find him Eman bran.com he breaks down all sorts of NBA uh Eman thanks for joining us again man thanks for being on the program um how you doing guys good to good to be here oh fantastic how do you think the Jazz did with their draft picks well I mean in terms of um Tyle filipowski I think was like I I think there have been some you know widely publicized reasons among others why his draft stock slipped and I think that um you know I don’t it’s not something that ever got deal you know I cover primarily college basketball and it’s not something that ever got really discussed or I think even really revealed maybe there were some rumors around Duke about it but um nothing major and I think it’s the kind of thing that occasionally attaches itself to a prospect and either you know you think about like the NFL draft or stuff like this um that’s not necessarily wrong or even all that super unusual but is the kind of thing that um gives GMS a reason not to draft a guy I I thought Kyle pH filipowski basically both years he was at Duke um was a first round draft pick potentially a lottery pick maybe not quite that high I don’t think he’s the most most athletic guy in the world but I think for what he is as a seven foot um you know true big guy who can actually step out and play on the perimeter um who played in a very modern style offense with um you know at Duke with with talented NBA level players I just thought he was a pretty obvious first round pick and when he slipped in the first round you you’re sort of looking at him looking at his stats looking at his draft performance okay maybe he didn’t measure as extremely well at the combine as you’d like for like a top 10 top 15 pick or something but the fact that he SLI to where he did I just felt like any team that grabbed him um in the second round after he didn’t go in the first night of the draft was going to be pretty happy with with their draft overall and I think um you know as quickly he’s he got smashed up by the Jazz in round two I think um they have every reason to be pretty happy with that what were some of the the the strengths you feel like of Kyle Philip paly’s career at Duke like what what do you feel like made him uh you know one of the best players in college basketball and and why you as you’ve noted you why you feel like he’ll be a good Pro yeah I mean I just think he fits a lot of what proteins are looking to do you know he’s he is seven feet tall he can he’s not like a great ball handler but he can put the ball on the floor a little bit but he’s strong he plays outside in um you know he was up around um 35% from three this past year which was a a prettyy significant Improvement over his first year when honestly you know he wasn’t as efficient as a freshman but Duke’s offense was kind of a mess in Jean shire’s first year they didn’t you know they recruited a lot of talented kids but didn’t recruit enough shooting which you sometimes get when you’re taking a lot of five-star guys um who are true freshman we’ve seen this with with John calipari’s Kentucky teams over the years too is if you don’t sprinkle in some real shooting um things can get a little stagnant no matter how tal how talented you are I think that’s what happened to him freshman year um and so you know I still think he was good enough as a freshman to to go pro and I think part of the reason why he wasn’t as efficient is the ball honestly went to him in the post a whole lot Duke didn’t have great spacing um but he’s he was a really good interior finisher stronger than he looks you know sort of wiy strong not easy to move off the block I think a lot of people will remember you know him playing against big DJ burns from NC State um you know guy who’s like 300 plus pounds like yeah DJ Burns can move him off the block not too many other guys did that um throughout college basketball and you know he’s playing against guys like Armando bot big players um high level players and and held his own physically so I don’t think it’s like you taking a wispy kind of tall kid who’s really just a you know an extended sort of lanky perimeter player he has some some stuff to his game on the interior and I think the fact that he was able to improve defensively this past season improve as a rebounder um turnover rate’s pretty good um you know he typically doesn’t Force things he can play downhill but again like I said step outside he’s got a lot of stuff to his game that I think translates pretty well and I think when he plays in an NBA offense especially and I think I do think you see this with talented college kids sometimes if they’re not always in the most spaced out version the college floor isn’t quite as spaced out anyway defenses can collapse a little bit more just as a general rule um I think playing on an NBA team with NBA Shooters around him as as part of it you know four or five wherever he’s playing kind of moving around and doing different things I think he’ll he’ll excel in having that much space to kind of operate as well so yeah like I I said I wrote it the night of the draft I think uh or the night after the draft I just think any NBA team who got him in a second round had had a pretty good reason to be happy because I think a guy’s that talented and is that sort of know B Who coming out of high school and plays well two years in college there’s no real solid um uh reason tangibly for him to drop other than maybe some of the stuff that that kind of came about after draft night with his family and his his personal situation so um yeah it’s a it’s a good pick kind of regardless I think you can plug him in doesn’t have to play right away can do a lot of different stuff so we were talking about this tonight at the draft we played I think the you know his his own kind of breakdown of his game as soon as he was drafted we listened to what he had said and he said hey and and you know what I would do this too if I was going to get drafted or I was hoping to be drafted he was asked about his his most similar comp kind of playing wise and he said yeah I’m kind of like a Lowry marinan uh Nica yic type of a player and I was like that’s what I would have said too now here locally we all kind of looked at it and went all right that Kelly oen was asked to do a lot of the things that that I think that he could do in his career which is and this is something too NBA you got to be tough and Kell Kelly oen has a toughness and a grit to him that that is that something that that KY filipowski could uh have or does have and and and would they ask him to be that kind of a guy because that’s what Kelly oen was as a Utah Jazz man and obviously has been in multi on multiple teams he already moved on from the ja too who is the most similar comp do you think to Kyle’s game yeah I mean I think marinin is a a very reasonable comp I think yic not maybe not so much that’s like uh um the classic clip of Seth Greenberg on ESPN saying um he say that Mo bombo was like a combination of Kevin Durant someone else and people are just like what are you talking about um but yeah it’s it’s you you you know draft season is silly and people throw those kind of comps around a lot I think marinin is actually a pretty good scan and I think oen is a pretty good scan too look like do I think Philip palsky is gonna become um an All-Star level player probably not um although I maybe Markin is not quite too far off these days but um yeah you know a guy who like you think about the way NBA teams are built you think about some of the guys that even really good NBA teams have on their roster um and they’re not the most like over overwhelming uh talents but they do a couple of things really well um and they’re flexible they can you know you have to be able to move and cover ground uh get away from the rim a little bit I mean you know think about Zach Edy like the question up until the last really like six months of his life was like can this dude move well enough to play in the NBA even though a year ago he was dominating at almost the same level on both ends of the floor for Purdue as he as he did this past season it’s just that he’s improved his foot speed and his movement he’s gotten out away from the rim more and played different kinds of of screen coverages and teams have seen him and are like yeah okay fine like if you can if you can play out to 20 feet and move around we’ll take a pick on you on the on the off chance you can you know sort of replicate your dominance on the offensive end in the league um and so you know being good at two or three things if you’re Kyle filipowski is a great way to stay in the league and be in the league for a while and I think he has a chance to do that and I think yeah like a Kelly o Len type of guy is a is a realistic compilation and the kind of player in the NBA that even really good teams you know look at the Celtics they’ve got guys that are are super talented super max players Allstars you know top five players in the league but they’ve got guys around the margins who who help them win a title that that can do two or three things on the court really well and you need that too Aman do do you think the NBA ever goes back to uh you know veteran college basketball players being selected near the top of the draft because it feels like the veteran college basketball Stars tend to be on the back half of the first round early second round and it’s just these young like Cody Williams from Colorado are going to always be those lottery picks do you ever think we we see a day of of more veteran college basketball stars because we’re seeing more now uh near the top of draft boards yeah you know it’s interesting I think the dynamic has totally changed with with nil and with veteran players right like there are a lot of Veteran guys in in college basketball particularly centers who are not super versatile um like your Armando Baco like Z up until this year um where the the calculus for them used to be okay everyone’s telling me I’m gonna go late in the second round I had a great College you know I’m one of the 10 best players in North Carolina history or whatever uh in terms of stats but uh the you know my NBA um you know perspectus is is shaky I’m gonna go anyway because what is there to lose right like I’m not getting paid to play in college basketball at least not above board and and so the the um underlying amounts there are pretty small at this pointy a guy like Armando Bott guy like Kyle filipowski for sticking around at Duke last year like they’re making significant money and the guys who are transferring around in college basketball are you know if you’re at the very very top end of the sort of the transfer portal portal desirability um you know you can command a million a million and a half bucks to play one season in college basketball and if you’re looking at a draft scenario where you’re not sure you’re going to stick in the league Beyond summer league um then it behooves you to stay and so the the calculus is for these guys to stay a little bit longer if they’re not sure their NBA stas as opposed to throwing themselves in the draft so I think it it does sort of codify the idea that hey we have more veterans and more Talent staying in college Bas because there’s money there now and guys don’t necessarily need to risk throwing themselves into the draft I also think it does elevate guys like Cody Williams who look he had a nice year for a freshman uh he came off the bench a fair amount like he’s a good clearly a good and super uber talented player but it’s a total like we’re betting on this guy’s talent and his his natural ability the things we think he can be in four or five years where you know you you see a guy I think Zach Edy is is kind of G to be an exception to this rule where he was so dominant and tested so well in workouts and performed so well that was just like all right fine you’re you’re a top 10 pick now we we we we acknowledge you um but there we’ve had lots of these guys in the past three four five years you’re Oscar sheway at Kentucky um your Bas that are setting you know records in terms of rebounding numbers but they don’t move well they can’t shoot from three they can’t shoot from 20 feet and so they’re not going to get drafted and so you are going to have G guys like that staying longer and longer um in college basketball and maybe by the time they’re sen senior there Zach Edy good and they’re kind of undeniable but but um the calculus has totally shifted I think even further towards taking you know you see a lot of guys from overseas that are tools players that you don’t you’re on them developing to something really high level talent wise as opposed to a guy like Philip hsky and I totally get it but um I think it makes s you know if Kyle Phil palowsky had come back to college for another year this year if he was really shaky in the second round um it would have made sense too Eman Brennan you can find him Eman bran.com he uh breaks down all sorts of college basketball including you can read this uh right up about Kyle filipowski who the Jazz are getting uh and it’s it’s a great read you can find out a little bit more about uh what this uh former Duke uh you know was going to be a first rounder ended up being a great value pick for this Jazz team in the early second round Eman thanks for joining us man we’ll talk to you again all right cares take care there you go Eman Brennan
JJ & Alex are joined by college basketball writer Eamonn Brennan (https://www.eamonnbrennan.com/) to get his thoughts on why the Utah Jazz may have just gotten a steal with drafting former Duke star Kyle Filipowski.
