Jody Genessy of the Deseret News (on Twitter) hears the Jazz are “frantically” trying to move up from the No. 5 spot. Everything Utah has remains available for trade consideration. The Jazz reportedly have their eye on forward Jabari Parker and they know there’s no chance of him falling to No. 5. Here’s the latest draft news..
- Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com (on Twitter) hears the Clippers are “50-50” on keeping their first round choice.
- One name to watch for the Rockets at either No. 25 or No. 42 is Russian big man Artem Klimenko, tweets Chad Ford of ESPN.com. Houston has been doing some serious research on him in recent months.
- The Lakers aren’t sensing a lot of momentum for a pre-draft trade and, as of right now, expect to keep the No. 7 pick, tweets Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times.
- The Knicks, Blazers, and Nets are among the teams trying to land a first-round choice, league sources tell Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).
- The Hornets have explored moving up from No. 24, league sources tell Kennedy (on Twitter).
- The Kings want to acquire a second-round pick, sources tell Kennedy (Twitter link).
- There are several picks in the late 20s “to be had,” one exec tells Ken Berger of CBSSports.com (on Twitter). With nine teams lacking a first-round pick, there’s a strong market for them.
- Meanwhile, Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter) hears that we could be in for high number of international picks in the 20-to-30 range. That’s because teams are placing a high value on cap space and want to stay away from the luxury tax so clubs might not be lining up to trade for picks in that range as expected (link). The clubs left holding those selections might prefer to go with draft-and-stash candidates in cases where they don’t have obvious, pressing needs.