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.
The article reposts multiple outlets’ takes on Hansen. My posting Weatherspoon’s stats was intended to show how poor the CBA’s level of competition is, and I’d say the Big East’s hoops level is higher.
Clingan’s role at UConn wasn’t scoring for the repeat champs. Guess what – he led the team in pts per 100 possessions by a LOT.
Blazers should trade down, they should be able to get 2 picks from Nets
Let’s say
16 for #22 and #26
Hansen Yang I think will be lucky to ever make the court in the NBA.
The fact the GM is already saying “Yeah, it might take him a little time” and the fact you already have how many centres above him.
Ayton is a rather consistent 16-12 kinda centre who’s numbers don’t actually translate into much on the court cause at time he lacks effort, attention and makes poor plays. His potential is obvious.
Clingan as a rookie on a team loaded with centres put up 6.5 and 8 playing under 20minutes a game. As a starter getting 30mins he would be putting up 15-12 with ease.
Then you’ve got Timelord Rob Williams. After missing almost two years he came back and put up 6 and 6 in 18 minutes with almost 2 blocks. Again fully unleashed on the right team he would be a 10-10 guy and one of the best shot blockers in the league.
All that and you still draft a centre going off potential. It’s just stupid, you have 3 good guys, 1 of them a former number 1 and another you just drafted last year inside the top 10. Not only that but the guys a projected second round pick pick and you draft him of way through the first.
Simmons>Russ,
All good, except the Timelord part. And you missed Duop Raith, who’s a legit NBA backup C.
Timelord is, literally, the most unavailable player in the NBA. Last 3 seasons he’s averaged 20 games. He’s unplayable, untradable, and most likely NBA player to be bought out this season.
I do somewhat agree. If healthy he’s an awesome player but that isn’t very often over the last few seasons. Doesn’t help now that when he is fit he has 3/4 centres to compete with for 1 position.
Would love to see him on some playoff sides.
Imagine him backing up Edey on Memphis. JJJ and Rob Will would be tough defence.
Or some kinda three team deal, him on the Knicks with KAT, he’d provide the defence, Mitch Robinson can go to the Lakers.
Be great backing up Jokic on the Nuggets aswell
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.
Ace has fallen in to a much better situation than in SAS or PHI… just look at Kuminga, you get picked by a team that must compete & it will set back your development years… might even kill your path to stardom.
UTA is a much better place to end up!
@aristotle
Quality post brother. Moody’s poor development by Kerr sure is infuriating. It really makes me mad when people say Kerr is an all-time coach. He rode Curry all 4 times and never could make it work without him. His developmental skills are truly the worst of all-time. 10+ years and pretty much no one they drafted has hit their ceiling. Looney had a higher ceiling than this. Couldn’t reach it because Kerr refused to use him like a normal coach would. Moody and Kuminga are headed right down that same route.
Everyone in Dub Nation gotta start yelling “Replace Steve Kerr with Andre Iguodala – I WANT IGUODALA!” as soon as possible, I want Steph to win more rings but Kerr will always ensure the team isn’t run well at all and will never maximize a player, only minimize them. Kuminga could damn well develop into a Lebron James-type player with that devastating first step, but look at him right now. That’s the Kerr effect. Kuminga is definitely an all-star level talent, but people will argue against that and cite his on-court performances – and that’s all because of Kerr’s horriffic development of him.
It’s almost like Kerr sleepwalks through this job. He simply didn’t even try to develop Moody and Kuminga, literally playing 2way and the less talented Gary nepo Payton 2 over them. Like, he did that. Why is he still here?