Sources: Team in top five told not to pick Bailey

NEW YORK — Leading up to the NBA draft, Ace Bailey‘s representatives informed a team drafting inside the top five they didn’t want that team to select the Rutgers wing, and that he wouldn’t report if they did, sources told ESPN.

Bailey, whose pre-draft strategy had been one of the biggest storylines entering this year’s draft, wound up being taken — in a surprise — by the Utah Jazz with the fifth overall selection, a team Bailey didn’t work out for and that the No. 3 overall prospect on ESPN’s top 100 list said he wasn’t even sure knew was interested in him.

“I can control what I can control,” Bailey said, when asked Wednesday night after being drafted what to say to people who didn’t believe he was happy winding up with the Jazz. “They feel how they feel.

“But my team and me, me focusing on basketball and them doing what they’re doing, so it happens.”

For his part, Omar Cooper, Bailey’s agent, pushed back on the notion that anything they did during the process was outside of the normal course of business.

“Every NBA team watched him work out in Chicago,” Cooper told ESPN. “He did 18 interviews. Everyone got his medical. They watched him run and jump. They got his measurements.

“No one said anything when Davion Mitchell canceled a workout with the Toronto Raptors. No one criticized Evan Mobley when he didn’t work out for Cleveland, and they drafted him anyway.”

“There is nothing uncommon about how Ace Bailey’s pre-draft process was handled.”

Cooper declined to address questions about the Utah Jazz or Bailey’s future with the franchise.

The way Bailey, a projected top-three pick for much of the season, and his team managed the draft process indicated to rival teams that they had a preferred destination in mind — with, for many, that destination being the Washington Wizards with the sixth overall pick.

Washington had landed Alex Sarr with the second overall pick last year after he chose not to work out for the team with the first selection, the Atlanta Hawks, and the Wizards had the kind of roster, with an open hole on the wing for a player with Bailey’s skillset, to step into.

But entering the draft, no team had rival teams guessing more about what they were up to than the Jazz, with their plans under recently hired president of basketball operations Austin Ainge being kept firmly under wraps.

It turned out, though, that those plans were to draft Bailey, giving Utah — which had the league’s worst record but wasn’t one of the four teams to have their ping pong balls selected in last month’s NBA draft Lottery, sliding them all the way down to fifth — a chance at a talent they wouldn’t have been expected to be able to get with the fifth pick for most of the season.

“He’s great,” Ainge told reporters of Bailey in Salt Lake City on Wednesday night after drafting both Bailey and Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr. “We were able to speak with him. He was super excited. We’re super excited. We’re expecting a very bright future.

“His scoring gets a lot of attention, [and] deservedly so. He’s very skilled for his size. But watching a lot of film on him, I was impressed with his defensive effort and particularly his rebounding. Lot of weak side block shots, and his joy and energy for the game.

“We do a lot of background calls and work on guys, and everyone loves being around Ace.”

Jonathan Givony is an NBA draft expert and the founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service utilized by NBA, NCAA and International teams.