He is young, flashy and unpolished. He dunks like a showman, shimmying and shaking after the really good ones. No one knows if he is ready for the rigors of college, let alone the NBA.
Doesn't exactly sound like a Jerry Sloan sort, does he?
Many might agree — except for Jerry Sloan, who just happens to like what he sees in 19-year-old shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson, the Jazz's first-round choice at No. 23 overall in Wednesday night's NBA Draft.
"He wants to be a good player," the Jazz coach said of Stevenson, a Parade High School All-American who also was leading scorer and winner of the slam-dunk contest at the recent McDonald's All-America High School All-Star Game. "And he has a lot of qualities to start off with. . . . Players can play all their life and never have that kind of starting point that he has.
"You have to take a chance on a player that can possibly be a star down the line," added Sloan, who, despite his old-school ways, met most approvingly with the selection of this California prep star who is bypassing the University of Kansas for NBA riches. "I think it was a tremendous opportunity to take that gamble and see if it's going to work. We really think it will, because he seems like a wonderful young man."
Kevin O'Connor agrees on both counts: good guy, good gamble.
"We think he's a kid that has a chance to become an NBA starter, eventually, down the road," said O'Connor, the Jazz's vice president of basketball operations. "And we rolled the dice a little bit."
That, O'Connor believes, is what a team beginning to plan for the future must do. Especially a team like Utah, led by two aging superstars, John Stockton and Karl Malone, and perhaps on the return route from a couple of trips to the NBA Finals.
"We were trying to say all along: The projection was not . . . 30 games into next year," O'Connor said, "but where we saw the best player available in three years.
"Hopefully," he added, "this is a block for the future, and in preparation for when we're in a situation where John and Karl aren't around."
The selection also signifies a departure in style for Sloan, whose clubs traditionally play much more of a controlled system than that to which Stevenson seems accustomed.
"He can rise up and jump over people. Not a lot of players can play this game and do that," said Sloan, who has spent many a day praising Stockton and shooting guard Jeff Hornacek for thriving on the floor because they could not in the air. "Not a lot of players can play this game and do that.
"We had Darrell Griffith here, who could get in the middle of the lane and jump up over people and create a shot for himself. This team (since then) has never really had those kind of players. It's different for us. There's no question about that. But that doesn't mean we won't give him an opportunity to show what he can do and have an opportunity to help our team."
After the New York Knicks took University of Florida freshman power forward Donnell Harvey at No. 22 (only to trade him later), the Jazz were presented with a last-minute offer from an unidentified team hoping to trade for the 23rd pick and use it on a big man.
But Utah — on the clock and on the prowl for an eventual successor to retiring Hornacek — wasted little time before decisively opting to take Stevenson over Yugoslavian point guard Marko Jaric, Duke shooting guard Chris Carrawell and Slovenian center Primoz Brezac.
Each of those three came to Salt Lake City to work out privately for the Jazz, as did Stevenson, and each of those three was still on the board when the Jazz's turn to pick came at 23. So, too, was University of Utah forward Hanno Mttl, whom the Jazz also worked out but had minimal interest in.
All three were gone by the time Utah went again at 50 (as was Mttl, who went No. 40 to Atlanta), prompting the Jazz to take University of Idaho forward Kaniel Dickens then.
The call on Stevenson seemed an easy one for O'Connor, who — even before the actual pick was made on the draft floor of the Target Center in Minneapolis — broke the news to a crowd of about 3,000 fans gathered at the Delta Center.
"We heard about the old, staid Jazz," O'Connor said. "I mean, you told us to get younger. . . . You told us to get more athletic. And I think we took that to the extreme."
Young, indeed: The Jazz have never seriously considered a high school player, let alone actually drafted one.
And athletic? Stevenson is certainly that, a self-described "gym rat" who has been shuffling a 6-foot-5, 210-pound dunk-loving NBA body from algebra class to American history at Washington Union High in Fresno, Calif.
"I see myself competing right away (for Hornacek's starting spot)," said Stevenson, who, after cutting into a celebration cake with about 10 family members in Fresno, was scheduled to fly to Salt Lake for an afternoon news conference on Thursday. "That's how I feel, and I'm going to work hard. Whatever happens happens."
What Sloan hopes happens is that Stevenson does work hard, because that's all he really wants in a player — whether it's a veteran who's been around the NBA block, or a high schooler who not too long ago was playing with blocks.
Baby blocks.
"You have to be patient with a lot of people," the Jazz coach said when asked if he will have the patience to work with someone so young, inexperienced and, most likely, naive.
"I don't know his personality that well. I'll find out after a few days, and we'll hit and miss on a few things. I don't think anybody knows exactly — if they do, they're a lot smarter than I am — how to deal with those situations. But we're going to work hard, and I think he'll work hard. That's the only thing I know.
"I've never disliked basketball players," Sloan added. "The guys that can play basketball, and hopefully understand what's going on in the game, and work at it to try to become better — I've never had a problem with those guys. It's the guys that don't like to work that I've always had a problem with."
This pick, though, seems to work.
Works for O'Connor, works for the Jazz and works, Sloan can only hope, for a coach who will accept nothing less.
"He has a lot of positive things," Sloan said. "People . . . will be excited about him, because he is an exciting-type person.
"There will be a lot of headaches (too)," he added. "I'm sure there will be a lot of headaches. But that's part of it."
E-MAIL: tbuckley@desnews.com