None of what you heard about Darryn Peterson and the Utah Jazz was true. Sorry, not sorry.
There was a lot of lousy reporting going on during the pre-draft process. In the weeks and months counting down to Adam Silver taking the stage, the NBA Draft serves more as a radio tower for nonsense, speculations, exaggeration, and blatant lies than it does a haven of truth, reliability, and well-founded reporting.
It's an exhausting process for fans who simply want a glimpse into the direction of the draft, and one even more exhausting for those who scramble to verify every morsel of breaking news.
And this draft cycle was especially questionable.
"I've never been in a business where so much is untrue," shared Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith on a recent appearance with FanDuel. "Just like, completely untrue."
Smith finally addressed the rumors that Peterson no only wanted to go first overall to Washington, but that he didn't want to play for the Jazz. That initial report was blatantly untrue, and Smith was happy to go into detail to describe why Peterson's connection to the Jazz went much deeper than a simple in-person workout.
"We met with Darryn [Peterson] at the combine. Darryn was awesome at the interview. But Darryn wants to go number one; everybody wants to go number one. But by the way, we had three different guys come in -- I don't call it a workout, I call it dinner -- I'll go to dinner with you, because there's no sweat, there's no nothing, they're sitting down with Will [Hardy] watching film [...] they call it a workout."
"No one's doing the three-minute run. If we haven't done our work by the time they get to Utah, what are we doing? [...] I think there's a lot of emphasis going on in the workout, and I'd argue a lot of the time the combine is the same way, but we have a body of work. We saw what DP did in the first half against BYU -- it was insane. That's the workout."
He makes a very strong point here. The Jazz scouting team has plenty of film and in-game examples of what each prospect brings to the court. And in person with BYU and AJ Dybantsa squaring off against the Jayhawks, Peterson was clearly the better prospect in every aspect of the game -- defense, scoring, shooting, playmaking, he was doing it all as Kansas began to roll through the Cougars at home.
The Utah Jazz knew who Darryn Peterson was before meeting him in Ohio. They knew who he was before he canceled his workout. They knew who he was when he walked onto the stage of the NBA Combine.
Modern journalism is intensely driven by attention -- clicks are king -- and unfounded reporting is the easiest and quickest way to drive that attention to your articles. Any rumors that Peterson was avoiding the Jazz were blatantly untrue, and Utah's newest addition is ready to prove that to the league.
