NBA Free Agency 2018: 5 potential destinations for Derrick Favors
By Bryan Harvey
Derrick Favors will soon be deciding between what works and what he doesn’t know. Where will he fit best in free agency?
Favors entered the NBA nine years ago as a number three pick. He has played eight seasons, not quite living up to his promise, but not a bust either. He’s a good, if not great, NBA player. He can definitely help a team win, having been a key cog in the recent playoff ventures of the Utah Jazz.
He’s still of an age where he can be described as young, but he’s also at an age where the ceiling is in view. Once upon a time, he was part of a Georgia Tech talent pipeline that included several one-and-done players. That pipeline has all but dried up, as have the production values of those whose talents it borrowed for a year and stamped with a Yellow Jacket logo.
I bring this up because this constellation of talent is full of tragic tales and stupid choices. Favors is of a solar system touched by the midnight rambling of Stephon Marbury, the first Yellow Jacket to make the leap so early, and the biologically doomed Chris Bosh, the most successful Yellow Jacket. These mighty brethren include the violent reckonings of Javaris Crittenton, the forgotten Dion Glover, and somewhat underwhelming Thaddeus Young.
If you’re about to hand Favors millions of dollars and are also superstitious, consider this context and heed its warnings. He could be eating Vaseline and threatening to Aaron Burr your starting point guard by the All-star break.
If you’re a rational human being and in need of a solid NBA power forward for strictly basketball reasons, then consider handing Favors millions of dollars.
Favors’ scoring peaked in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, but his usage rates in those years were higher than his most recent seasons. These dips are in large part due to the expanding role of Rudy Gobert, Utah’s perimeter play, midseason acquisitions that altered the team’s rotations, and injuries to his back and knee. Twice in the last three years, Favors played less than 70 games in a season. In terms of his value over a replacement player, however, his 2017-18 season was every bit as productive as those two earlier seasons when his scoring peaked.
Favors is one of the league’s tallest power forwards and possibly its heaviest. He is, in some ways, born for another era. The teams he can best serve need to either play a traditional style and pace or will be looking for a player to enter into the fray when the gravity of the game causes the perimeter to sag. That said, Favors, especially if he is to leave Utah, will be looking for a place where he can do more. He is at an age where his best basketball years are still hopefully on the horizon. If he doesn’t at least believe that, then there’s really no point in signing him. You want him arriving in camp with something to prove. You want him to make good on having been the number three pick once upon a time. Even if it’s possibly fool’s gold, you want to believe in the investment.
The reason to think he’s the real deal. Perhaps in today’s NBA he’s not a power forward, but a center. His career averages are 11.6 points per game and 7.2 rebounds. However, this past season, when Gobert missed time at center, Favors slid into his spot and handled the role masterfully, as his numbers in that brief span were 16.5 points per game and 9.3 rebounds. He was strong and efficient. The team continued winning, so the following options for Favors could consider the age-old caveman conundrum: Is he power forward or is he center? Except his era has already proven such questions are obsolete. Here’s where he fits best.