Kyle Filipowski has stated many instances that he has tried to mannequin his sport after Utah Jazz ahead Lauri Markkanen. Serendipitously, the 2 will now be teammates.
The Jazz drafted Filipowski, a sophomore middle out of Duke, with the thirty second decide of the 2024 NBA draft.
“Simply how skillful he’s and the way cell and the way properly he strikes at that top is one thing I positively attempt to mannequin my sport after, as a result of I feel that’s what makes him such a particular participant,” Filipowski stated of Markkanen on Thursday night time. “Simply having the ability to have this chance to play alongside him and be taught from him each day, I’m tremendous grateful for this chance. I’m wanting ahead to taking advantage of 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 assume that Filipowski may add the identical form of depth to the Jazz’s frontcourt in time.
Although Filipowski performed middle in faculty, he doesn’t profile as a standard rim-running, rim-protecting massive. 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 may do all of the issues that make stretch bigs invaluable in as we speak’s NBA.
At 6-foot-11, Filipowski can dribble, go, shoot, run both aspect of a pick-and-roll, he units nice screens, is an effective cutter, reads the ground properly and may pick-and-pop. He has an excellent NBA body and as he fills it out, he has potential to turn out to be a robust participant on the rim, however he does have to develop a bit to have the ability to play towards stronger gamers within the publish.
“We got here into as we speak, hoping to draft Kyle Filipowski,” Jazz vice chairman of analytics Shane Fenske stated on Thursday. “We have been tremendous thrilled that we have been in a position to do it. He’s a brilliant versatile 7-footer who can go, shoot and actually impacted profitable for an excellent 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 in the course of the pre-draft course of. However the Jazz entrance workplace weren’t fearful about something and didn’t see any purple flags with Filipowski.
“We do deep background on all of the draft prospects to ensure that we’re in the end comfy choosing them,” Jazz vice chairman of basketball technique Steven Schwartz stated. “We’re very happy to have Kyle be a part of the Jazz, and we’re comfy with every little thing. 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 sport whereas taking pictures 34.8% from 3-point vary — which was an enormous improve over his taking pictures numbers from his freshman season when he hit on simply 28.2% of his treys.
The Jazz have been learning Filipowski for quite a lot of years and they’re assured that his shot development is actual and can translate properly to the NBA. He’ll want time to develop into a robust and dependable NBA participant, however on first look it appears the Jazz obtained nice worth with a second-round decide.