Just one first-round selection dating back to 2000, Kevin O'Connor's first NBA Draft as the Jazz's basketball boss, remains on the roster.
One, 2000's DeShawn Stevenson, was shipped off after nearly four full seasons. Three — 2001's Raul Lopez, 2002's Curtis Borchardt and 2004's Kirk Snyder — were purged in a fell swoop, all part of a five-team 2005 trade that came after none of the trio actually played more than two seasons in Utah. Another from the Class of 2004, Kris Humphries, lasted only two years before being dealt away earlier this month. And one more, 2003's Sasha Pavlovic, exited after one season, left unprotected in an expansion draft.
Only 2005's Deron Williams, O'Connor's signature pick to this point, remains.
It's not exactly the portrait of a franchise building through the draft. O'Connor knows it and seems OK with the reality that his track record of top picks reflects a rather nomadic group.
"Certainly we've had some guys that haven't been as successful as we'd like them to be," he said with Wednesday night's draft, his seventh in charge of the Jazz, fast-approaching. "Sure, put it on us. I'm comfortable with that. But that shouldn't be the story.
"The story, at least I feel, should be the improvement we made, and the fact that at the end of the year, when we had everybody healthy, we were pretty good. And we should be better next year, because every one of those guys should be a better basketball player."
It's true that the Jazz went 41-41 in 2005-06, quite a jump from the 2004-05 season's record of 26-56.
But it's also true that Utah has failed to make the playoffs in each of the three seasons since future hall-of-famers John Stockton and Karl Malone exited — and that none of its draft picks since 2000 have so far been able to reverse that trend.
And that is where this story unfolds.
Four of the Jazz's first-round picks under O'Connor — Stevenson, Pavlovic, Snyder and Humphries — remain in the NBA with other teams.
Only one of the four, though, is much more than a bit player — Stevenson, a full-time starter at shooting guard last season for the Orlando Magic.
Pavlovic was left out of the rotation when Cleveland went to the playoffs. Snyder lost his starting job at New Orleans/Oklahoma City before the season ended. And Humphries heads to Toronto having started just six of his 129 games in Utah.
Two others — Lopez and Borchardt, both significantly injury-plagued — are out of the league and are now playing in Spain.
Combined, that group has essentially netted the Jazz current shooting guard Gordan Giricek, retired center Greg Ostertag and newly acquired first-round bust Rafael Araujo via trade.
Not exactly All-Star credentials, on any front.
Only one Jazz pick since Malone in 1985, in fact, has played in an NBA All-Star Game: Andrei Kirilenko, who was selected in 1999 by current Jazz assistant coach Scott Layden in his final draft as Utah's basketball boss before leaving to become general manager and president of the New York Knicks.
No wonder general national perception of the Jazz's draft history of late is reflected in this recent line from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Ira Winderman: "Few will have their reputation on the line at the draft as much as . . . Kevin O'Connor."
So what's gone wrong?
Some point to good fortune simply not being on the Jazz's side.
"Certainly at the time we make a pick we think it's the right decision," team president Denny Haslam said, "but sometimes things don't work out."
Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, who has his share of say in the Jazz's draft decisions, concurs.
"When you get into the draft — and I'll say this as long as I'm in the business — you've got to be lucky," Sloan said. "A lot of guys will tell you (they made the right pick) after the fact — but, in all honesty, you have to have a great deal of luck.
"There is no guarantee of anything," he added. "You can take a guy with the second pick in the draft, or the first pick in the draft, and he might not be able to compete and give you what you'd like. . . . That's been the history of this league."
Darko Milicic . . . Nikoloz Tskitishvili . . . Jonathan Bender . . . Michael Olowokandi . . . The league-wide list of top-five draft busts indeed goes on and on.
But it cuts both ways.
"How did we think about our drafts when we got to John Stockton and Karl Malone?" Sloan said. "There wasn't a (team) ahead of us that thought they could play at the level (they did), and those guys came in and became great players.
"We just got lucky."
Yet for one franchise to have as many strikeouts as the Jazz, at least in terms of homegrown players turning into huge hits, it seems there's got to be more to it than lousy luck.
Another factor, Haslam suggests, is that the Jazz's success in the Stockton-and-Malone era resulted in a series of drafts in which Utah was picking from the scraps left over after non-playoff teams had first dibs.
"When you pick in the 20s you get what's in the 20s," he said, "and when you pick in the teens you get what's in the teens."
The lower a team picks in the draft, in other words, the less likelihood there is that it will strike it rich.
Some stick, many more do not.
"If you look back on non-lottery picks," O'Connor said, "you can certainly say that."
And only two of O'Connor's picks have come from the so-called lottery, or top-14 — No. 3 overall Williams, who seems to be well on his way to a long and productive NBA career, and No. 14 Humphries, who for now appears headed down a somewhat different path.
"For not having been in the lottery . . . I think we did as well in that situation as you can do," Sloan said of the years pre-2004. "We've been in the lottery, and we haven't done great in it — but I think we've been as good as you can be sometimes."
Another potential factor: Sloan's patience, or lack thereof, with young players.
Sloan scoffs at the notion.
"Not at this point," he said, when asked if he thought the franchise had prematurely given up on some of its first-round picks. "Not from what I've seen, and what I've heard.
"Only time," Sloan added, "can tell."
The implication: Players like Stevenson, Pavlovic, Snyder, Lopez and Borchardt haven't exactly turned into All-Stars elsewhere.
Jazz brass, Sloan further suggests, decided to move on and leave some of their first-rounders behind only after determining it was in the best long-term interests of the franchise to do so.
Also in Sloan's defense: The Jazz, by way of example, have been patient enough to live with ups and downs of Kirilenko as he emerged from under the wings of Stockton and Malone and blossomed into a legit NBA star in his own right.
Also part of the problem, O'Connor suggests, is individual circumstances.
In Borchardt's case, O'Connor believes it was worth rolling dice because a 7-footer with potential was available after all the lottery teams were finished selecting.
The Jazz say they were well-aware of Borchardt's history with a stress-fractured foot at Stanford, yet they were willing to chance it anyway.
"Hey, we took a risk on him," O'Connor said. "He had a good year. He averaged almost 12 rebounds a game (in his final college season)."
Lopez is another matter.
The Jazz often are criticized for not taking current San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker (19 other teams also passed on him, by the way) and tapping Lopez instead.
But the fact remains that at the time it made perfect sense relative to the Jazz's roster and payroll. Stockton wasn't ready to retire in 2001, and with his salary and Malone's still to be paid it made a large degree of sense to let a point-guard pick develop overseas and off the books for a year.
How were the Jazz to know that only after they took Lopez he would blow out a knee that would have to be surgically reconstructed not once but twice?
"One of them (Borchardt) I could say, 'Hey, we knew the risk,' " O'Connor said. "The other guy (Lopez) — he had never been hurt."
And how were the Jazz to know, for that matter, that Lopez's run of injuries would continue even after he gave Utah a full 82-game season in 2003-04?
"He had a good year," O'Connor said. "I mean, did we project him with the 24th pick as being somebody that could play 20 minutes in the league? And he did. Could he play in the NBA? Yeah."
As for Pavlovic, O'Connor doesn't feel Utah gave up on him at all.
"We didn't pull the trigger on him," he said. "We got caught in a situation where we (couldn't protect him from the expansion draft). . . . We didn't trade him. We had to put a name out there. We didn't want to let him go. We wanted to see how he developed. But we didn't have an opportunity."
Snyder wasn't happy playing for Sloan, and asked to be traded. Humphries never really gained the coach's favor either, prompting his departure.
Examined under other light, the Jazz's draft history under O'Connor may not be as bad as some insist.
Stevenson's 2005-06 season, for instance, was such that it gave him the confidence to opt out of his $3 million contract for next season and test his value in the NBA's summer free-agency market.
"If you look at DeShawn Stevenson, he's turned into a decent pro," O'Connor said. "I mean, he's averaging 11 points a game and starting for a team. . . . At the (23rd) pick in the draft, I'd say that's pretty good."
O'Connor also has continued the Jazz's history of second-round finds, one which includes the selection of recently retired Bryon Russell and recent NBA title-ring winner Shandon Anderson of the Miami Heat.
Utah big man Jarron Collins, a part-time starter during his five seasons with the Jazz, is a serviceable if unspectacular NBA player for someone taken at No. 53 overall. The Jazz also made a great pick by taking current Milwaukee Bucks guard Mo Williams at No. 47 overall in 2003, even if they may have made a poor decision by allowing him to get away one year later.
One of their second-rounders from a year ago, C.J. Miles, is a 19-year-old oozing with potential. His presence, along with that of Williams, offers hope for the future.
"We think they're gonna be around for a while," O'Connor said of the two from the Class of 2005.
Yet one more way to judge a draft: Who was taken immediately after the Jazz made their pick?
Chicago went with Dalibor Bagaric one spot after Stevenson. Sacramento tapped Gerald Wallace one position after Lopez. Utah took Ryan Humphrey for Orlando one pick after Orlando took Borchardt for the Jazz. Boston selected Dahntay Jones one place after Pavlovic. Boston drafted Al Jefferson after Humphries, and Atlanta summoned Josh Smith after Snyder.
No All-Stars there.
"There have been a lot of first-round picks that have never played," Sloan said. "People think, 'Well, that's a mistake.' But you can definitely make mistakes in this business."
So how costly are these miscues?
It can be argued that one draft gone awry can hamper a franchise for decades down the road.
Twenty years ago, remember, Boston took Len Bias at No. 2 overall. Bias died of a drug overdose shortly after the draft, and some say the Celtics still feel the pain.
O'Connor, however, argues the draft is highly overrated — and points to the current NBA-champion Heat to help make his case.
"Out of the seven or eight players that play (in the regular rotation) for Miami, how many of those were their draft picks? Anybody know?" he asks. "One. That's Dwyane Wade at 5.
"So, there's a lot of different ways to build a team."
One can counter that 2003 and 2005 champ San Antonio constructed a pretty strong nucleus by drafting Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan.
But O'Connor can jab right back.
"If you look at (2004 NBA-winner) Detroit and what they've done," he said, "there's one player (Tayshaun Prince) that's significant that plays for them that's their draft pick.
"So, that's just part of it — and a lot of times, when you're drafting 18 and in the 20s, you're gonna get in a situation where maybe you (trade) somebody to get somebody else. That's just what it is."
It's a philosophy to which O'Connor says the Jazz intentionally subscribed in the post-Stockton-and-Malone era.
"(Drafting is) just one of the ways that you get (good)," he said. "We said that when we started all of this.
"But I'm not trying to hide behind that," O'Connor added. "What I'm saying to you is we need our draft picks to play well and to improve — but we also need to be able to maneuver and get other players."
Other avenues for franchise development include not only trades, but the free-agency market — which in 2004 netted Utah its top two scorers and rebounders (by average) from the past season, Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer.
"We had the money," O'Connor said, "and went out and looked at free agents.
"And we're going to continue to make moves," he added, "because when we lost John and Karl, and Jeff (Hornacek) a couple years before that, we didn't (immediately) replace them with anything."
Besides, O'Connor suggested, the free-agency pickings are more-proven products than college players and young prospects from overseas.
"I would much rather be able to sign a good free agent than wait (to see) if the 20th pick in the draft is gonna make it for us," he said. "Because I know what the good free agent can probably do. We felt we knew what Okur can do after he got in the league and played a little."
Stevenson? Lopez? Borchardt? Pavlovic? Humphries? Snyder?
All less certain.
"I think you evaluate the team," O'Connor said, "and not just evaluate what you do in the draft."
That's the story, and he's sticking to it.
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com