KSL draft prospect watch: wings and guards

SALT LAKE CITY — With draft day only two days away, KSL Sportsbeat brought on Jazz VP of Player Personnel Walt Perrin to break down the biggest prospects in this year's draft. Today, we'll post our impressions of the wings that are slated to go in the range of #12. Perrin's opinions, along with those of Jeremiah Jensen and Rod Zundel are above in the video, Andy Larsen writes a breakdown of the players below. We used DraftExpress' mock draft to order the players, their current slot in that mock is in the table above each player.

Stanley Johnson has one of the most NBA ready bodies in his class: he's big, strong, and athletic. At Arizona, he created his own shot well, though perhaps too often: oftentimes, he took bad shots that were outside of the offense. On defense, though, he's got great size, footwork, and physicality, giving him the ability to guard wings and smaller power forwards at the NBA level. A concern among NBA execs is that he might think he's better than he really is: he took a lot of bad shots last season when he might have been better passing the ball, and occasionally took a play off on defense. Jazz coach Quin Snyder wouldn't put up with that.

Devin Booker's the youngest prospect in the draft: a knockdown shooter with enough size that you can imagine him as eventually developing secondary skills at the NBA level. Unfortunately, he doesn't have those skills right now. That's the rub with Booker: if he develops an ability to defend, pass, dribble, or playmake, he becomes an incredibly valuable starter. If he doesn't, he's like Anthony Morrow or Steve Novak: shooting specialists who rarely get off the bench because they hurt you too much in other ways.

Kelly Oubre's certainly confident in his own abilities, but I'm somewhat skeptical: his production at Kansas didn't match his opinion of his own game. Oubre's size and length is stellar, but ultimately wasn't a good inside finisher, outside shooter, or passer last season at Kansas, which doesn't add up to much of an offensive toolbox. But Kansas wings have been somewhat stifled by Bill Self's system in the past, and so there is a sense that Oubre, like Andrew Wiggins before him, might be able to outperform his college stats at the NBA level.

Last season, R.J. Hunter was a chucker along the lines of Austin Rivers, shooting less than 40% from the field for his father's Georgia State squad. But in 2013-14, Hunter was a relatively efficient scorer that showed an ability to score at multiple levels, and get his teammates involved. The question: who's the real Hunter? If he makes his shots like 2 seasons ago, he'll be a real asset. But if he shoots under 40%, he won't be a valuable player in the NBA, especially given his questionable defense.

Sam Dekker's a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none player that took his game to a new level in the NCAA tournament last March. If he improves his shooting stroke, that ability across the board could really help the Jazz from the wing position. If he doesn't, though, it's not exactly clear what his NBA skill is. Dekker has a good base of skills and size, but he'll need to improve in at least one aspect to make an NBA rotation.

Utah's Delon Wright is a statistical darling, making the top 10 in many analytical models that project NBA performance. His solid defense, including forcing lots of steals, promises an NBA base as a quality defensive PG. Wright also showed impressive offensive versatility at the collegiate level. The big question with him: does his limited athleticism allow his skills to translate to the NBA? If not, it could be tough to find minutes in the league.

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