Ace Bailey selected No. 5 overall by the Jazz | 2025 NBA Draft Grades & Instant Reaction

Ace Bailey selected No. 5 overall by the Jazz | 2025 NBA Draft Grades & Instant Reaction

Major history for Rutgers. Never had a top five draft pick in their program history. They have two tonight. Dillon Harper at two. Ace Bailey at five to the Utah Jazz. The 15th college duo selected in the top five in the modern draft era. Harper set the Rutgers freshman scoring record with 564 points. Bailey, not far behind him, scored 527 points in his one season in Piscataway. As you take a look at the last five selections, Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, both the freshman from Rutgers. And how about this Adam Finkelstein? Ace Bailey to the Utah Jazz. Maybe was hoping to go to Washington and play for the Wizards is right. And like we said, you don’t play chicken with the angels because you’re going to lose. And his camp just just lost. I give this an A an enthusiastic a ace. Bailey is, in my opinion, a top three prospect in this class. His upside is significant. His agency is representation. He did not work out in Utah. They presumably didn’t want to be there. Utah was not going to get bullied. They took the best prospect on the board. That is a process that deserves an A, and in Utah in particular, we know Austin Ainge ran his first draft there. The other thing we were told is that he was not going to be held accountable for previous decisions. Utah took Cody Williams last year. This is a little bit redundant, but Cody Williams did not deliver that immediate return, even though we knew they were going to be some growing pains that anybody expected last year. This is an indication that Ace Bailey is going to go in and have an opportunity to make an immediate impact, and I think in the long run this could work out very, very well for the jazz. I like what Utah did here. In other words, just believing in their evaluation and not letting anything interfere with that. Like Fink said, most people, himself included, had Ace Bailey projected as a top three pick in this draft for basically the whole past year. And that only changed really in the past week or so. But the evaluation should have never changed on him. He’s still the same prospect you had graded a certain way, so you’re going to pass on him for an inferior prospect, because why his advisor doesn’t want him there. Ace Bailey is very young. I bet he can be happy pretty much anywhere. You just got to get him there, build the thing around him, and hopefully he can tap in to that potential that makes him one of the more intriguing prospects available. I don’t know, I guess I’d rather say I’m a top five pick than the slip sliding down the draft, because I didn’t go and work out for special teams. I mean, if you’re top five, pick your top five pick. And Avery, a lot of responsibility comes with being a top five pick. Ace Bailey going to go to Utah. How would you coach him? How are you going to welcome him to the community? Because maybe he didn’t want to go there. But now he’s headed there. I think this is a terrific pick for the Utah Jazz. This is an early Christmas present. What did they celebrate Christmas in Utah or not? But this is a great pick for them. This is a great pick for them. They need guys that can come in and play from day one. This team has been set back for years. Obviously Danny Ainge son now is running the show in terms of this draft. This was his first real draft. One of my former players, Collin Sexton, you know his name has been in the news. We’ll see if he’s going to remain on this roster. But they need guys that can come in. This kid is ready to go. Obviously he’s got to become a much better free throw shooter. Not, you know, be able to extend his range to the NBA. But his size his athletic ability the this this team the Utah Jazz. They got to find a path forward back to back to the playoffs. This team has been down for so many years. This kid could have easily fallen to the Washington Wizards. But again they took the best player available. And I’m really excited about this draft pick for the Utah Jazz. The jazz were hoping to have the number one overall pick. This was a team that had an awful record last season, one of the worst, the worst in the NBA, and they were hoping to potentially get Cooper Flagg. They get Ace Bailey. That’s a pretty good consolation prize at at five overall here. Well it goes back three years. When Danny Ainge first arrived and he traded away Donovan Mitchell. And he traded away Rudy Gobert for some bites at the Apple to try and get a star. They have not landed on the star yet I think that’s why they brought in Austin Ainge. Someone to truly concentrate in quarterback this draft process and in this decision, I think I do believe they have a chance of getting a star in Ace Bailey, and I’m not sure there was another player on the board that has the same upside. That’s exactly right. And you start talking about all the buzzwords connected to prospects upside potential. Let’s throw Cooper Flagg in a category by himself. But Ace Bailey would be next in terms of if everybody who was available tonight maximizes what they can be as a basketball player. Ace Bailey, if he gets there, it can be as good as anybody other than Cooper Flagg. And I wouldn’t even rule out him actually, you know, competing for scoring titles and stuff like that. But he has a lg way

Adam Finkelstein, Gary Parrish, and Avery Johnson join CBS Sports HQ to grade Ace Bailey being drafted No. 5 overall to the Utah Jazz.

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