Derrick Favors: Next Big Thing In Utah

Its a new era of Utah Jazz Basketball and people are very excited about the future of 22 year old Derrick Favors. Favors who was originally drafted by the then New Jersey Nets was traded to Utah for Deron Williams so that right there just tells you how much potential people think he has. Favors dominated at South Atlanta High School, he dominated at Georiga Tech but will he dominate at the NBA level??

Favors through out his time in Utah has seen limited minutes in the Jazz rotation due to Paul Milsap and Al Jefferson being focal points of the team but with both gone that’s all about to change. Last season he averaged only 23.2 Minutes a game but the production he gave Utah was tremendous off the bench averaging 9.4 points, 7.1 Rebounds on 48% shooting. Thats good production as a bench player for the amount of minutes he was playing. Now he is guaranteed substantial minutes and will likely be the focal point of the offense so the Atlanta native will have a chance to really show the basketball world what he is capable of.

This summer Favors is hard at work attending USA mini camp with some of the NBA's best young talent. Going up against that competition is great but it pales in comparison to the 2 months of training he did with Jazz great Karl Malone. Favors when speaking about the training with Malone said the following "He just taught me just a lot of mental stuff,During workouts we're just talking. He was just showing me things here and there, that everything was mostly mental." That’s a big deal for any young player in this league to work under the Tutelage of a guy like Karl Malone for an extended period of time. Favors spoke more of the training saying "Might sound crazy but the hardest thing was getting ready to work out with him. He wanted me to be in shape, be ready before he got there. We did a lot of things, a lot of conditioning stuff so he wanted me to be ready for him." Favors is training with a great to be great so hopefully this translates to the court this season.

I like Derrick Favors a lot I think at 6-10 and thick 248 pounds he is a physically imposing speciman who is tremendous at using his athleticism to finish around the rim and has impeccable timing when it comes to blocking shots as he averaged 1.7 Blocks in just 23 minutes last year as a bench player. For Favors now its all about developing a post game and then ultimately that “Go to” move in the post that so many of the great big men have. Favors has all the tools now he just needs to put it all together and if he does he will be one of the very few elite big men in the NBA.