Decided advantage: Jazz opt for Brewer's versatility over Carney's shooting touch

The top foreign film, Senegalese 7-footer Mouhamed Saer Sene, will be sleeping in Seattle after going No. 10 to the Sonics. The people's choice award-winner, consensus national player of the year/drama king J.J. Redick of Duke, went to Orlando at 11. The arthouse independent, Swiss sensation Thabo Sefolosha, fell off the board a couple picks later.

That left the Jazz, owners of the No. 14 overall selection in Wednesday night's NBA Draft, to decide if they wanted to see the super-athlete with a crooked shot or the senior shooter with limited dimension.

Utah opted for slip-sliding University of Arkansas shooting guard Ronnie Brewer, choosing the son of Razorbacks legend and ex-NBA guard Ron Brewer over a remaining field perhaps topped from the Jazz's perspective by University of Memphis swingman Rodney Carney.

"It was nerve-wracking," said Brewer, a projected top-10 pick according to some mock drafts.

"A lot of teams communicated with me that I'd go higher," he added, "but once they went by, I kind of got nervous — because I was like, 'Oh, man, I don't know how my interview went with (the Jazz) and Philadelphia and some other teams I didn't have an opportunity to work out with.' "

Well enough, evidently, in the case of Utah, which also took Illinois guard Dee Brown and Louisiana Tech power forward Paul Millsap with its two second-round selections, Nos. 46 and 47 overall.

"When we sat down and started this whole thing," Jazz basketball operations senior vice president Kevin O'Connor said, "we actually didn't think he (Brewer) would be there. We had him projected a little bit higher than (14)."

One by one, though, other players the Jazz also really liked fell by the wayside.

After the Sonics took Sene, a raw-but-promising giant, Utah's basketball boss blamed the media.

"You guys made it such that it looked like we were drafting him so now he goes at 10," O'Connor said. "Seattle kept reading about what we were doing."

A collective groan could be heard at the Delta Center, where Jazz brass worked the draft in front of about 1,000 fans seated in the arena, when Orlando took Redick.

The Jazz were not shocked by the Magic's move, even though Redick recently was arrested for alleged drunken driving and recently has been bothered by a herniated disc that is pressing a nerve near his spinal column.

"We felt it was coming," O'Connor said. "I'm happy for J.J."