Ace Bailey's representatives reportedly told team with top-five pick he would not report if drafted

Yahoo

6 days ago

Ace Bailey's representative reportedly told one team with a top-five pick in the 2025 NBA Draft that if it selected Bailey, he would not report to them, according to a new story from Jonathan Givony and Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
Whether or not they were told that — and despite not working him out — the Utah Jazz selected Ace Bailey with the No. 5 pick Wednesday night. It was not a reach by the Jazz — Bailey has arguably the second highest ceiling of any player in this year's draft and Utah needs high-level talent — but the sense in league circles heading into the draft was that Bailey and his representative, Omar Cooper, had a promise and/or were trying to steer the Rutgers star to Washington or Brooklyn. Cooper denied that in the same ESPN report.
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"Every NBA team watched him work out in Chicago," Cooper told ESPN. "He did 18 interviews. Everyone got his medical. They watched him run and jump. They got his measurements... There is nothing uncommon about how Ace Bailey's pre-draft process was handled."
Bailey, for his part, echoed the same idea at the draft, stating that he was not worried about where he was selected or what people thought about his unusual pre-draft strategy of avoiding workouts.
"They feel how they feel," Bailey said. "But my team and me, are focusing on basketball and them doing what they're doing, so it happens."
If the report is true, Bailey's options were always limited if a team called his bluff. He can choose not to report to the Jazz (or whoever drafted him), but he cannot return to college after staying in the draft. Additionally, if he plays professionally overseas next season, the Jazz retain his draft rights. The only way to end up with another team is to sit out an entire year, not playing professionally anywhere, then re-enter the draft. However, that is a crap shoot because who knows what the draft order will be a year from now and what team's priorities will be.
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Bailey, a 6'8" wing, was projected as a top-three pick for much of the year. Bailey looks like a prototypical NBA wing on paper: Great positional size, a high-level athlete, high motor, shot 36.7% from 3 in college, can create his own shot, and is a tough shot maker who averaged 18.4 points and 7.2 rebounds a game. However, not all scouts were convinced he would come close to reaching that potential in the NBA. Those concerns, plus his pre-draft strategy of no workouts and some interviews that left teams confused, saw him slide a couple of spots to No. 5, where the Jazz snapped him up before Washington or Brooklyn had the chance.
Bailey is likely to make his Jazz debut at the Utah Summer League, which starts on July 5 in Salt Lake City.