Kevin O'Connor came to the podium Thursday night and announced that the Utah Jazz had used their 55th overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft to select 6-foot-10 Herbert Hill from Providence.
But hold on, the Jazz's senior VP of basketball operations told the crowd at the EnergySolutions Arena.
"There's going to be some tomfoolery," he said, adding, "We made a trade for a big guy."
He could not announce the particulars of the trade until it was approved by the NBA, which brought 7-foot Kyrylo Fesenko of Cherkaski Mavpi of the Ukraine SuperLeague to the Jazz.
Fesenko worked out for the Jazz on Wednesday at EnergySolutions Arena.
O'Connor finally finished his official work with the trade after 11:30 p.m. Thursday and said that the trade was finally done and includes future considerations, but he refused to elaborate on those considerations.
He said it did not come about because of his friendship with the Sixers, for whom he used to work, and he said it was not part of the future considerations from the deal the two teams made at the February trade deadline, in which the Jazz took 6-9 Alan Henderson to help the Sixers avoid luxury taxes. Henderson never played for the Jazz and in fact re-signed with Philly.
O'Connor wouldn't discuss whether Fesenko has any buyout considerations with his Ukrainian team and said he hadn't thought about whether the Jazz might keep him in Europe for another year.
"He's a big strong kid that runs pretty well," O'Connor said. "We watched tape on him today. He's active and likes to take the ball to the hole, so he's active."
Fesenko said on Wednesday that he felt he had problems showing the Jazz his low-post skills since no one at the workout was taller than 6-7, and the Jazz did not know a great deal about him, such as whether his European contract included a buyout, but they planned to do some homework before the draft.
Fesenko played the last two seasons in the Ukraine SuperLeauge, averaging 6.7 points in 20 games last season. He played the last three years in the FIBA EuroCup/EuroCup Challenge.
He is an early entry for the draft, and nearly was an early entrant last summer but withdrew because he couldn't get a guarantee of being a first-rounder.
He was still playing in the Ukrainian championships this month and did not make it to the Orlando Pre-Draft camp but did workouts for 13 teams including the Jazz and was still working out in Cleveland on Thursday before the draft, trying to move into the first round.
Fesenko grew up in Denepropetrovsk, Ukraine, the largest city in that country,He seemed pleased with Salt Lake City and its mountains and said it seemed a healthy place to be.
E-mail: lham@desnews.com