Utah Jazz: 3 reasons keeping Derrick Favors is a good move

1. Favors is still improving

While he’s been in the league for a while — taken with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2010 NBA Draft — Derrick Favors is still only 26 years old. He may be just entering his prime going into his ninth pro season.

Favors shot a career-high 56.3 percent from the field last season. He worked on expanding his range; attempting a total of 63 3-pointers when his previous career-high had been 10 attempts. Favors also cracked the 100-assist benchmark for just the second time as a pro.

Favors also turned in the best single-game playoff performance of his career in 2018.

In Game 2 of Utah’s first-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Favors put up 20 points and 16 rebounds to help lead the Jazz to victory. Utah would go on to upset OKC in six games before being eliminated by the top-seeded Houston Rockets in the conference semifinals.

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The Jazz have put together a solid young team that could be a real threat to the league’s powerhouses in the near future. Favors may not be a headliner, but he is an important part of a core group that the franchise was smart to keep to retain.