Utah Jazz take Butler's Gordon Hayward

SALT LAKE CITY — If Gordon Hayward's shots fall anything like the boos that rained down at EnergySolutions Arena when his selection was announced Thursday night, the Jazz should feel soaked with satisfaction over their first-round pick in the 2010 NBA Draft.

Hayward — a 20-year-old sophomore swingman from Indianapolis' Butler University, the runner-up to Duke in this year's NCAA title game — was taken at No. 9 overall.

The 2009-10 Horizon League Player of the Year went only after much-liked power forwards DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky, Epke Udoh of Baylor and Greg Monroe of Georgetown were off the board — going No. 5 to Sacramento, No. 6 to Golden State and No. 7 to Detroit, respectively — and the Los Angeles Clippers had taken Wake Forest small forward Al-Farouq Aminu at No. 8.

"I think most of the guys that went in the top were big, and if some of those guys would have been there we probably would have gone big," Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor said. "But ... we got the best player available.

"We like his versatility, we like the fact that he's an intelligent basketball player, and we like the fact he's gotten better."

O'Connor — who called Hayward "America's darling" because of Butler's Cinderella NCAA run, which included a Sweet 16 win over Syracuse and an Elite Eight win over Kansas State at EnergySolutions — seemed compelled to calm those crying that Utah didn't take a big man, telling fans at the arena, "The only thing I hope is in two years you're not booing."

"Well," he told media members later, "they told me they booed John Stockton, too, so let's hope history repeats itself."

Added Jazz coach Jerry Sloan: "Maybe we would have liked to have had bigger bodies. ... It just didn't materialize — and just to take someone because they were big or that sort of thing doesn't make you a better team."

Hayward, who attended the draft in New York, knew all about the reaction in Utah.

"I heard that some of the fans were expecting a bigger player, and there was kind of some negative reaction," he said by phone. "And for me, I think I'm just gonna go in there ... and play hard and hopefully I can do some things on the court to turn those around."

North Carolina power forward Ed Davis, Kentucky power forward Patrick Patterson and Kansas center Cole Aldrich were still available when Hayward was taken.