Kyle Filipowski has stated many occasions 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 choose of the 2024 NBA draft.

“Simply how skillful he’s and the way cell and the way nicely he strikes at that top is one thing I undoubtedly 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 evening. “Simply with the ability to have this chance to play alongside him and be taught from him day by day, I’m tremendous grateful for this chance. I’m wanting ahead to benefiting from it.”

There’s definitely purpose for Jazz followers to be excited in regards to the addition of Filipowski to this present roster. Bear in mind when the Jazz had Kelly Olynyk on the group 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 suppose that Filipowski may add the identical type 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 huge. However, in the identical vein of Olynyk, he is a brilliant 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 helpful in at present’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 efficient cutter, reads the ground nicely and may pick-and-pop. He has a terrific NBA body and as he fills it out, he has potential to change into a powerful participant on the rim, however he does must develop a bit to have the ability to play in opposition to stronger gamers within the submit.

“We got here into at present, hoping to draft Kyle Filipowski,” Jazz vice chairman of analytics Shane Fenske stated on Thursday. “We have been tremendous thrilled that we have been capable of do it. He’s a brilliant versatile 7-footer who can go, shoot and actually impacted successful for a terrific Duke program.”

Many believed that Filipowski could 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 guarantee that we’re finally comfy deciding on them,” Jazz vice chairman of basketball technique Steven Schwartz stated. “We’re very happy to have Kyle be part of the Jazz, and we’re comfy with all the pieces. 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 finding out Filipowski for a lot of years and they’re assured that his shot development is actual and can translate nicely to the NBA. He’ll want time to develop into a powerful and dependable NBA participant, however on first look it appears the Jazz obtained nice worth with a second-round choose.