The Jazz weren’t on Ace Bailey‘s list of preferred destinations heading into Wednesday night’s draft, sources tell Tim Bontemps of ESPN. Bailey didn’t hold any pre-draft workouts as he was reportedly trying to manipulate the process to end up with a team that could offer him guaranteed playing time and a large role in the offense. The Wizards were believed to be interested at No. 6, but Utah selected him one pick earlier.
“We really like him as a player and a fit in our program,” president of basketball operations Austin Ainge said.
The selection ended a controversial pre-draft process for the talented Rutgers forward, who was viewed as a top-three pick when the college basketball season wrapped up. Bailey called off a scheduled visit to Philadelphia last week and was believed to be the only prominent U.S. player who didn’t visit any team before the draft. He said he had “no idea” the Jazz were interested in taking him.
“I feel like once I come in, it’s going to be a lot of work,” Bailey said. “I feel like I’m a person that likes to work out a lot. I’m going to push my teammates to be the best they can be. I want to come in and be a leader as a young cat.”
There’s more from the Northwest Division:
- At a post-draft press conference, Ainge dismissed rumors that the Jazz have been involved in trade talks with the Celtics regarding Jaylen Brown, tweets Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune. There are some obvious connections, as Ainge recently left Boston for Utah, and his father, Jazz CEO Danny Ainge, drafted Brown when he was running the Celtics. “I don’t like to confirm or deny rumors, just as a policy, but I will this time,” Austin Ainge told reporters (Twitter link). “No, that hasn’t happened. No conversations that way.”
- Trail Blazers general manager Joe Cronin monitored Hansen Yang for nearly two years before selecting him with the 16th pick, according to Aaron Fentress of The Oregonian. Cronin acknowledged the pick was “unconventional,” per Sean Highkin of Rose Garden Report (Twitter link), but views the 7’2″ center, who was the Chinese Basketball Association’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2024, as a project who’s worth investing in. “His ceiling is very high,” Cronin said. “It’s extremely difficult to find a young player of that stature with this skill set. And it’s translatable stuff that we’ve seen really, really skilled big men that can do all the things that he can do, typically succeed in our league. Yeah, it might take him a little time, but as he figures out the speed and pace of our game, I wouldn’t put a ceiling on him. He’s that talented.” Cronin added that the Blazers weren’t comfortable trading down farther than the 16th pick because they believed other teams were eyeing Yang as well.
- Timberwolves general manger Matt Lloyd told Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic that several team officials flew to Chicago over the weekend for a private workout with Joan Beringer. After talking to the French center and seeing him in action, the group was convinced that he was perfect for the franchise if he remained on the board at No. 17. “Joan is one of those rare cases where the best player available also had a fit,” Lloyd said. “And we were sweating it. … It was a long night of waiting.”
Hansen will be the starting 5 in Portland sooner than later. He’s younger than Clingan was last yr but he’s also more ready to contribute.
Sankara, it sounds like you’ve seen a good amount of film on Hansen Yang. I can’t find much. What have you seen?
If you’re familiar with me as a commenter on this website you might remember that I’m consistently talking about the various FIBA youth tournaments that take place during the summer every yr. The best of these tournaments is the FIBA U19 World Cup which is played every 2 yrs. This tournament is coming around again in a few days, starting in Switzerland on Saturday. Hansen played in the U19 WC for China 2yrs ago. He’s 1 of those guys who pops off the screen (similar to Dylan Harper who was our best player in that same tourney). But I been following Hansen ever since. He came over with the Chinese senior national team last summer to play in the Summer League & was the best player on that team. There’s prob full games of him from the U19 WC on YouTube. There’s def highlights of that, last yrs SL & a lot of him with Qingdao over the past few years. This is a vid about 6hrs long of his tape. He’s arguably better than any big to come into the league since Wembo… link to m.youtube.com
Thanks, I’ll check out those links.
(BTW, I was not being cynical when I asked you. I’m aware that you follow international hoops.)
Im not being cynical either. I genuinely would love more of y’all to watch these guys before they get to the league bc I truly feel like it makes it harder to root against them and hate on them so much when you’ve watched them since they were youngsters & sorta watched em grow.
@ Sankara
Hansen was expected to be a mid-2nd rd pick for good reason. No one that knows basketball would agree that he’s more ready than Clingan to play at the NBA level, considering that his 6’4″ teammate Quinndary Weatherspoon (who washed out of the NBA after 3 seasons avging 2.1 ppg in 6.5 min/gm) led them at 27.4 ppg 6.5 rpg and 7.5 apg in the crappy Chinese Basketball Association.
NBA analyst summary:
link to nypost.com
The fact that you linked to a NY Post article says pretty much everything that needs saying as far as refuting your argument but I’ll go further. You argue that Hansen isn’t better than Clingan bc Quindary Weatherspoon outscored him lol. I mean that’s clearly a ridiculous argument. Clingan was outscored by guys like Alex Karaban & Tristen Newton. And they played in the Big East which is definitely inferior to the CBA.
Blazers should trade down, they should be able to get 2 picks from Nets
Let’s say
16 for #22 and #26
Jazz got a couple of nawf ATL legends in Zay Collier & Ace Bailey leading their youth movement now. This is the 2 former rivals putting on an incredible show a cpl yrs ago, showing off the skills that made them both 1st rd picks.. link to m.youtube.com
Really hope that the Jazz can fully commit to developing Bailey and Collier. Combined with Kessler, that’s a nice young core of 3 that could make the playoffs in 2-3 years.
But going into year 4 of its rebuild, the Jazz have repeatedly shown a failure to commit to young players, insisting on giving big minutes to journeymen like Collins, Sexton, Clarkson, and, even, Markkanen, even with little hope of winning games. If that doeesn’t change, this rebuild will stall. Again.
Collier shot 25% from three last season. In the current league, it’s pretty difficult to give a lot of minutes to a PG with that kind of outside shooting percentage.
My my is blown Bailey was lying about his height this whole time, how did this even happen? link to si.com
@DaveyJ The combine measurement stuff is always interesting because player agents/reps will lie and then try to avoid events where players can be measured.
Regarding Bailey’s height, exactly the same thing happened with Brandon Ingram, who had been listed at 6’10” and turned out to be 6’7.5″ in bare feet just before the draft. It didn’t hurt Ingram because his listed wingspan of 7’3″ turned out to be accurate. The same was true with Bailey: his listed wingspan of ‘7’1″ turned out to be accurate. Bottom line: it’s all about wingspan, not height.
BTW, your guy Moses Moody listed by Clutch pre-draft as 6’7″ with a 7’1″ wingspan, but turned out to be 6’4″, with a 7’1″ wingspan.
In the same draft as Moody, Davion Mitchell’s stock fell when his listed wingspan of 6’8″ turned out to be 6’4″. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t been as good a defender in the NBA as predicted when in college.