Derrick Favors is one of the budding stars in the NBA as he has improved every single year since entering the league. Favors was drafted third overall by the New Jersey Nets back in 2010 before being traded to the Utah Jazz in the Deron Williams trade. Last season was a great one for Favors but he is looking forward to even more success this season both personally and on a team level as he says one of his goals is to be an All-Star this season, according to Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News.
Favors is a 6 foot-10 power forward who was always expected to be a star in the NBA as he was the top recruit coming out of high school before attending Georgia Tech for a year. Favors has been in the NBA for five seasons now and is looking to be recognized in his sixth season with a trip to the All-Star game.
"It's a personal goal for me to be an All-Star. And I think right now, I've been put in a position to hopefully make it with a good team, a good coach, an organization and a front office that's pushing for it, so I think I have a good chance to make it. But it all depends on me - how I play this year, how bad do I want it," said Favors.
The 24 year old is very confident in himself and is highly motivated going into this season after being snubbed from Team USA training camp. Favors has said he was not happy about being left off the list but said he is using it as motivation and he is going to prove that he needs to be there next year.
As for the team goals Favors believes it is time for the Jazz to take the next step and be a playoff team this year. A season ago Utah missed the playoffs for the fourth straight year but showed a lot of promise in the second half, winning 19 of their last 29 games, and are a popular sleeper pick to make the playoffs in the Western Conference. The Jazz have an extremely young nucleus in Favors, Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert but they have experience as well as both Favors and Hayward are entering their sixth NBA season.
In 74 games last season Favors averaged 16.0 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game while shooting a career best 53 percent from the field. If Favors improves on those numbers again this year, like he has every other year he's been in the league, he has a very realistic shot of being the first Jazz All-Star since the guy he was traded for, Deron Williams.
