And that's still true.

Good thing for the Jazz, because they rather passively selected Morris Almond, a 6-foot-6 guard out of Rice, with the 25th pick in Thursday night's draft. He was the shooter the fans at EnergySolutions Arena wanted the Jazz to pick, and they got their wish when Kevin O'Connor went to the lectern and announced the selection.

The fans cheered, again, when David Stern echoed the pick a few seconds later on the big screen. Minutes after that, Jerry Sloan, looking as though somebody just swung a hammer onto his thumb, said the following: "We're very excited to get Morris Almond. . . . He has one great skill."

Sloan didn't sound particularly excited, and for good reason.

Ask yourself: Does this pick really matter? Probably not. The Jazz could have taken Mr. Magoo with the same result: another blown salary on a rookie.

Think about it. If Sloan couldn't find a way to allow Ronnie Brewer, the 14th player taken a year ago, to help last season's team, will Almond be given an opportunity to boost next year's Jazz iteration?

Please.

With Sloan, there are rare exceptions to the rookies-can-pound-sand rule, but only if they play basketball like Paul Millsap. Everybody else is pretty much put on ice - until the old schoolmaster gets good and ready to gift them with game time.

Almond averaged 26.4 points and 6.6 rebounds his senior year . . . blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

As we've seen in past drafts, much of the annual exercise is an overblown waste of time. The Jazz can host a party at the arena, can build as much drama into it as is possible - at least before exploding into laughter, because they, too, know the whole thing's overcooked, and, at the end of the night, it really won't make much of difference as to how the team performs over the next couple of seasons.

Again, there are exceptions, but they are uncommon.

I've never figured out with any exactness why this is so. You'd think there would be enough good young basketball players coming up to make an impact on the NBA. Most of them can barely make any team's roster. It's wholly unlike the NFL, where drafted players through multiple rounds restock and restore teams constantly - impacting many teams each and every year.

Go back through past NBA drafts and you'll have to weed through a stack of forgotten names, with an occasional keeper standing out. This most recent draft is exactly the same, outside the guaranteed tandem of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant.

The Jazz's guy?

Picking him is a decent effort, but don't bank on anything there.

All of which leaves the trade option, an avenue the Jazz typically do not utilize, not to any important degree, or a free-agent acquisition as their means to a better end.

Looking around the West, they may need something drastic.

That only seems to contradict the opening paragraph of this column. The Jazz will, indeed, get better just by growing a year older, by having played another season together, by making their playoff run. Deron Williams is bound to improve, right? Same with most of the rest of the Jazz youngsters.

But . . . if the Suns or Lakers get Kevin Garnett, the Mavs play up to form, the Spurs stay as they are, the Jazz, even if their players mature, could be the fourth- or fifth-best team in their conference. And with the teams from the Pacific Northwest hitting gold with those first two picks, climbing will be as arduous as ever in the Western Conference.

In other words, natural growth for the Jazz probably won't be enough. They need more.

It's complicated. It's difficult. It's almost impossible to pull off a meaningful trade in the modern NBA. But the Jazz might have to wade through impossibilities to realize their intentions.

Almond, bless his heart, is a fine scorer, a good three-point shooter, and a liability on defense. He likely won't help the Jazz get there. Not now, anyway. Check back in three seasons.

Yeah, the draft is a nice little ditty for a select few teams. For everybody else, including the Jazz, barring a miracle, that's all it is. That, and propaganda meant to build hope.

For most teams, and likely the Jazz, too, Thursday night's draft was a mix of fortune hunting and futility dressed up in celebration. It didn't change much, same as it ever was, and it mattered to only a lucky few.

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* GORDON MONSON can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com. To write a letter about this or any sports topic, send an e-mail to sportseditor@sltrib.com.