Did the Jazz land the biggest steal in the NBA draft?

The Utah Jazz were near universally praised for their 2024 NBA draft selections, namely Cody Williams with the No. 10 pick, Isaiah Collier with the No. 29 pick and Kyle Filipowski with the No. 32 pick.

Draft experts almost across the board rated Utah’s draft class as one of the best in the NBA, and those that didn’t still considered the Jazz’s draft haul notable.

In Williams, Collier and Filipowski, Utah got three players who all — at one point or another in the last year — were considered worthy of lottery selections.

That Utah landed Collier and Filipowski where it did made those selections even more notable. The question is which pick was the bigger steal? Were either Filipowski or Collier the biggest steal or best value pick in the entire draft?

ESPN’s draft gurus Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo both loved the Jazz’s selections of Collier and Filipowski, although for different reasons.

Givony called Filipowski the “best value pick” in the entire draft.

“Filipowski is a competitively skilled, 20-year old 7-footer who can dribble, pass and shoot and was one of the most productive players in this draft class,” Givony wrote.

“He has always been a better defender than he has been given credit for and helped lead Duke to the Elite Eight. He was a top-10 prospect on ESPN’s Big Board in March. I’ve spoken with dozens of people who know him and his situation intimately and trust he will find a way to develop into a very good player who will deliver strong value to Utah after picking him in the second round.”

Woo, meanwhile, believes Collier is the player that fans and the NBA will collectively wonder — in disbelief — how he fell as far as he did in the draft.

“I get why teams cooled on him” Woo wrote,” but drafting him at No. 29 was an amazing break for the Jazz, and puts Collier in a great situation to develop and learn on the job.

“It’s the type of fit he needed, and I think he has the talent to accelerate his learning curve in a better situation in the pros. He’ll need to shoot it a lot better, but this sticks out as a fall that might look goofy in hindsight.”

Interestingly enough, multiple anonymous college basketball coaches had similar praise and/or confusion has to how both Filipowski and Collier were available for Utah to take them when it did.

Said one coach to ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, “(Collier) is not too far removed from being considered the first pick in the draft. If you had told somebody two months ago you could get Collier with the 29th pick, you’d take it and run. And see if you can get him back to what made him such an attractive pick.”

Similarly, another coach was shocked Filipowski wasn’t a first-round selection.

“There are things that you can pick apart about his game, whatever the criticism is, but I don’t think there’s many guys in the draft that are as accomplished as he is as a college player and as a high school player,” the coach told Borzello. “I think he deserved to be a first-round pick.”

To be fair, not everyone believes those two Jazz picks were the single biggest steals or most surprising picks. Dalton Knecht to the Los Angeles Lakers at No. 17 has registered a lot of buzz, and there are plenty of draftees who will probably have more impactful seasons for their teams that Filipowski and Collier.

Collier struggles mightily to shoot the ball with any sort of consistency and fixes like that don’t occur overnight, if they ever happen, and Filipowski has his own flaws, as one college coach told Borzello.

“He had the hip surgery and he was never overly mobile in the first place,” the coach said. “He doesn’t move great, he doesn’t keep guys in front of him.

He played in a Duke offense where he got a touch every time down the floor and things ran through him. NBA teams aren’t going to do that.”

Still, that the Jazz were able to take both Collier and Filipowski when they did in the draft meant for many that Utah had pulled off some particularly advantageous draft shenanigans.

Which is why experts like CBS Sports’ Kyle Boone believe that the Jazz had “the best draft out of any team in the association.”