The Ace Bailey query has taken the draft world by storm this week, after he canceled a exercise with Philadelphia. (The 76ers maintain the No. 3 total choose tonight.) Nonetheless, Bailey’s analysis is difficult, and this has been true for months, not days or perhaps weeks.
The intel that NBA groups have on Bailey, from having spoken with over a dozen sources all through the season and pre-draft course of, is that his teammates loved being round him. He has plenty of infectious vitality. However he’s a bit immature and may battle with focus, these sources mentioned. His pre-draft interviews with groups on the NBA Draft Mix didn’t go notably nicely, because it appeared like he went into them a bit ill-prepared for what was being requested of him, in accordance with sources. They weren’t so unhealthy as to knock him off of anybody’s board, however they raised additional questions on what precisely has been occurring along with his pre-draft course of, as he’s largely been shielded from groups.
It’s simple to chalk this as much as Bailey being an adolescent, and it’s utterly cheap to suppose that he’ll mature as he will get older. You too can chalk up the shortage of preparation for interviews to questionable illustration, and there are definitely many scouts and executives across the NBA who’ve questions on how successfully he’s been repped. Proper now, we’re down to 2 prospects. Both Bailey’s agent Omar Cooper — whose lone expertise repping a possible top-five choose was with Isaac Okoro in 2020 earlier than Okoro left to be represented by Excel — is successfully steering Bailey towards a desired location, or he’s bungled the method and can trigger an unplanned slide for Bailey on draft night time.
The fact is that Bailey simply won’t be for everybody.
