The wait is over.
With the No. 5 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft Wednesday, the Utah Jazz selected Airious ‘Ace’ Bailey out of Rutgers.
In his lone collegiate season, Bailey averaged 17.6 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, shooting 46% overall and 34.6% from 3-point range on 4.5 attempts per contest.
“When they called my name and I was selected, it was a very emotional time,” Bailey said. “My mom, I mean, she’s crying, the whole table is crying because the hard work and sacrifices we needed for me to be in this position — not just me, but my family also, so it was very emotional to be in that position.“
Bailey comes to the Jazz as an extremely raw talent with a ton of room to grow. Even so, he’s obviously a natural scorer with a high release and the ability to get a shot off in tight situations without needing a screen to get open.
At the NBA level, Bailey is going to need to gain a lot of strength and refine some of his skills in order to play efficiently. He’ll need to clean up his shot chart, defend with more attention to detail and operate without the ball in his hands, but the 18-year-old seems ready to put in the work.
“I feel like I can improve on everything,” Bailey said. “I’m very young, just coming to the game, so there’s a lot of stuff I can improve physically and mentally — from jump shots to creating, more creativity, ball handling, all of the places."
The Jazz still have another first-round pick, No. 21, as well as two second-round picks to make Thursday night.
The Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs, as expected, took Cooper Flagg (Duke) and Dylan Harper (Rutgers) with the first and second picks, respectively.
The Philadelphia 76ers selected Baylor wing VJ Edgecombe with the pick No. 3 and the Charlotte Hornets took Duke’s Kon Knueppel with pick No. 4.
That meant that the Tre Johnson (Texas) as well as Jeremiah Fears (Oklahoma) were still available when the Jazz made their selection, but they decided to take a swing on the ultimate upside of Bailey.