Utah Jazz Weekly: Derrick Favors Commits To 4-Year Extension

The Utah Jazz only had one preseason game this week, a 99-92 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. However, there were plenty of other pieces of news for Jazz fans, highlighted by a successful surgery for Trey Burke and an immensely important contract extension for Derrick Favors.

As was expected, Trey will be keep his surgically repaired finger immobile for the next three weeks, at which point he will be re-evaluated. From the timetable Trey himself gave through Twitter, he may be back on the court as soon as one to three weeks after the re-evaluation. Trey will be hoping to miss as little of the season as possible, which starts in a little more than a week.

The most important development for the Jazz this week was the news about Derrick Favors’ contract extension. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo!, Derrick and the Jazz agreed to a four-year, $49 million contract with additional incentives.

Derrick is one of Utah’s core of young players that they hope develop into stars. Derrick’s new contract is proof of Utah’s belief that he has what it takes. Derrick has proven he has the potential to be a defensive monster by showing good defensive awareness and averaging 1.7 blocks in just 23 minutes last season. Even so, paying Derrick a little more than $12 million per year represents a bit of a risk for Utah. Favors’ offensive game hasn’t quite clicked yet. He’s been unable to be consistent when shooting from outside of the paint and even though he’s efficient in getting to the free throw line, trying to force his offensive game could cost Utah valuable possessions (he’s shooting 12-of-34 so far this preseason). It’s up to both coach Tyrone Corbin and Favors to understand what he is capable of offensively and put him in situations to be successful. Enes Kanter is showing this preseason that he may be more than capable of being a scoring threat in the post while shooting better than 50 percent from the field this preseason, which enables Derrick to transition to playing in a way that fits his skill set better by using his strength, length, and athleticism to collect points in a secondary offensive role. This may help Favors learn what he is capable of offensivel, and help the Jazz be most efficient.

Who’s Jazzed?

Enes Kanter: As mentioned above, Kanter has been showing his capability to be an worthy offensive option for Utah. In Wednesday’s preseason game, Enes dropped 23 points on the Blazers on 10-of-17 shooting. This doesn’t even tell the whole story, as Kanter had 23 points with about eight minutes remaining in the third quarter. However, Enes also showed his inexperience by wilting later in the second half and only had four rebounds (zero defensively). All in all, Enes had a great game against Portland and is continuing to prove himself.

Singin’ the Blues

Alec Burks: It’s probably too early to list Burks here, as there was only one game this week and Burks was the feature of last week’s “Who’s Jazzed?” However, Burks belongs in the doghouse for at least a day after his truly terrible performance in the game against Portland. Burks shot 1-for-13 from the field and only made two of his four free throws.  Unfortunately this may be what we see from Utah’s young guns this season as they try to learn what it takes to be a star in the NBA.

Looking ahead

Utah has a busy week, with four preseason games ahead.

Sunday 10/20: Jazz at Thunder
Tuesday 10/22: Jazz at Lakers
Wednesday 10/23: Jazz at Clippers
Friday 10/25: Jazz at Lakers

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