Notebook: Utah Jazz hope for high draft pick

SALT LAKE CITY — They've waited more than six years.

But now — soon, and finally — the Jazz will learn just how high they'll pick in the June 24 NBA Draft.

As it stands, they're slotted at No. 9 with a long-coveted selection originally owned by the New York Knicks.

By the end of Tuesday night's NBA Draft Lottery in Secaucus, N.J., however, Utah could be choosing as high as No. 1 overall or as low as No. 12.

"It's an important pick," point guard Deron Williams said. "Hopefully they throw some more lottery balls in there for us."

Odds, though, suggest the Jazz are likelier to be picking ninth or lower than they will in the top three.

Utah has 22 chances out of 1,000 number combinations to move into the top three — a mere 2.2 percent chance.

If the Jazz don't jump up to first or second or third, they'll either stay at No. 9 or drop to No. 10, No. 11 or — in the unlikeliest of scenarios — No. 12.

Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor will represent the team at the televised event, but not because Utah itself is a lottery team this year.

The Jazz's own pick, No. 23 overall, was dealt to Philadelphia as a part of a trade that brought shooting guard Kyle Korver to Utah, and now is owed by Minnesota.

The pick Utah will use was initially traded by New York to Phoenix as part of a January 2004 that sent now-out-of-the-NBA guard Stephon Marbury to his hometown Knicks, and the Suns shipped it to the Jazz the very next month.

The February 2004 deal, a cost-cutting salary dump for Phoenix, sent veteran forward Tom Gugliotta and his expiring contract to Utah along with cash, a 2004 first-rounder (used on now imprisoned shooting guard Kirk Snyder), a 2005 second-rounder (later traded to Philadelphia for a 2008 second-rounder used on Ante Tomic, a European big man now playing for Real Madrid in Spain) and the highly valued but tightly protected Knicks pick.

Protection on the Knicks selection finally expired after the 2009 draft, allowing the Jazz to use it now.

Utah's only cost for the pick: Ben Handlogten, a big man with a torn anterior cruciate knee ligament who played all of 38 NBA games, all for the Jazz, and also-inured Keon Clark, a journeyman center who played only two games for the Jazz and who later ran into legal troubles that sent him to jail in Illinois.