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The Utah Jazz did everything they could last year to ensure a top-5 pick, and they were able to make it happen. They rested players strategically throughout the year to ensure they had the best possible odds of drafting a star. It worked when they were able to draft Ace Bailey. It wasn\u2019t the conventional way of winning the lottery and drafting that player in the top 4, it was through Omar Cooper and some terrible advice given to Bailey in the draft process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Bailey was considered a project when he came to the Jazz, among other \u201cweaknesses\u201d on his scouting report. Some of those included him being uncoachable, a ball hog, a bad passer, a bad handle, a questionable shooter, and having an ego. Almost every single one of those has turned out to be false.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Probably the only thing that\u2019s proving to be a legitimate area of improvement is his handle. Bailey has the handle to make rudimentary moves with his handle, but it isn\u2019t polished enough for him to comfortably drive to the basket, initiate plays, and more. Instead of forcing Bailey into those types of plays where he might consistently struggle, Will Hardy has set him up to succeed by having him play off the ball for catch-and-shoot threes and cuts to the basket.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Bailey is spending a good amount of time sitting in the corners, but when he\u2019s being rewarded with the ball, he\u2019s knocking down shots.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
His form is beautiful, and it feels like he\u2019s making it on every shot. It was a bit of a rocky start for Bailey, who was on a minute restriction when he was coming off the bench because of sickness. In those first 8 games, he was shooting 40% from the field and just 13% from three. In the last four games? He has shot 52% from the field and 45% from three, with the last three of those in the starting lineup. But it\u2019s not just shooting that he\u2019s doing, Bailey is rebounding the ball really well, especially on offensive boards. It\u2019s clear that his size and athleticism is functional within the offense and these types of rebounds are going to be the norm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Bailey has also been a willing passer, making the right play with regularity. He\u2019s taken Will Hardy\u2019s directive to pass the ball to heart and the ball flows while he\u2019s on the floor. Bailey, being a ball hog, was probably the biggest misnomer of everything on his scouting report. He\u2019s averaging a solid 2.3 assists per game. What\u2019s exciting is that Bailey is 6th on the Jazz in usage percentage at 18.8% (this being the percentage of Jazz plays that end in him making a shot or turning the ball over while he\u2019s on the floor) and is playing 27.5 minutes per game. For context, Lauri Markkanen is averaging 2.1 assists per game and is first on the Jazz in usage percentage at 27.4% while playing 35.3 minutes per game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
What this means is that the Jazz have the makings of a great player on their hands. It\u2019s a great foundation that Bailey is building on, and he can only get better from here. When that handle starts coming around and he starts driving to the basket, drawing fouls, initiating pick and rolls, he might become something very special. For Jazz fans, they\u2019re lucky they get to watch him develop and be a part of the team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Aren\u2019t we glad the Jazz put themselves in a position to draft him? It certainly seems like something they should consider doing this year again, while they\u2019re bad enough to do it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Utah Jazz did everything they could last year to ensure a top-5 pick, and they were able to make it happen. They rested players strategically throughout the year to ensure they had the best possible odds of drafting a star. It worked when they were able to draft Ace Bailey. It wasn\u2019t the conventional … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Ace-Bailey-is-becoming-the-star-the-Utah-Jazz-need.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10337,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335\/revisions\/10337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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