Jazz a house divided on draft night?

Kevin O’Connor wasn’t offering details, but it seems likely the Jazz did indeed try to trade up to in Thursday’s NBA Draft in order to get Jimmer Fredette.

The Jazz general manager said there were some draft day deals offered to the Jazz and the team made some offers of its own, but nothing materialized. Asked specifically if the Jazz tried to move up to get Fredette, O’Connor said, “No comment.”

One national report said the team was divided over whether to take Fredette if available, and O’Connor did joke on Thursday that those in the draft room “don’t like each other” after spending the last 16 days together evaluating players. He went on to say that in the meetings someone would say, “You said [a player] could do this” in January “and today you said he can’t.”

He also said the team management “at (No.) 12 got a case of the red (expletive) who we were going to take.” In other words, there was a lot of disagreement on the matter. Asked if he knew Fredette would be unavailable at 12 — thereby making him a moot point for the Jazz — O’Connor said, “I didn’t know that.”

In drafting Enes Kanter and Alec Burks, the Jazz got a couple of 19-year-olds. O’Connor joked about their youth, saying “they’re not gonna go out and wow them; they’ve gotta go get drivers licenses in the state of Utah.”

In all, Jazz brass seemed happy with the picks. At the same time, O’Connor appeared more tired and tense than usual. He warned that if he had to answer more than one question about Fredette, he’d be grouchy.

While the Jazz did nicely in this draft, it’s likely neither of their picks will be the caliber of Deron Williams (the No. 3 pick in 2005).

In a side note, O’Connor said if Sacramento had kept the No. 7 pick in the draft, he didn’t think the Kings would have drafted Fredette that high. That in turn may have caused Fredette to slip to No. 12.