{"id":145442,"date":"2025-07-04T00:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T00:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/145442\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T00:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T00:27:10","slug":"jazz-sign-first-rounders-ace-bailey-walter-clayton-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/145442\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz Sign First-Rounders Ace Bailey, Walter Clayton Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Jazz have <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/jazz\/news\/utah-jazz-sign-ace-bailey-and-walter-clayton-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">put out a press release<\/a> officially announcing that they\u2019ve signed first-round draft picks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baileac01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-02_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ace Bailey<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/claytwa01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-02_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Walter Clayton Jr.<\/a> to their rookie scale contracts.<\/p>\n<p>Bailey, considered by many draft experts to be the third-best prospect in this year\u2019s draft behind only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/f\/flaggco01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-02_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cooper Flagg<\/a> and Rutgers teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harpedy01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-02_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dylan Harper<\/a>, didn\u2019t conduct any workouts during the pre-draft process as his camp appeared focused on getting him to a specific destination.<\/p>\n<p>While Utah wasn\u2019t believed to be that destination of choice, the Jazz\u2019s front office decided Bailey\u2019s upside was worth the risk, sight unseen \u2014 he didn\u2019t make it past the team\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/06\/jazz-pick-ace-bailey-fifth-overall.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">pick at No. 5 overall<\/a>, and after some <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/06\/latest-on-ace-bailey-2.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">speculation<\/a> about whether or not he\u2019d report, he <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/06\/northwest-notes-yang-randle-presti-bailey.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">arrived in Utah<\/a> as planned.<\/p>\n<p>In 30 games for the Scarlet Knights last year, the 18-year-old averaged 17.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per contest, with shooting splits of .460\/.346\/.692.<\/p>\n<p>Assuming he signed for the maximum allowable 120% of the rookie scale, which is a safe bet, Bailey will earn $9.1MM in 2025\/26, and will net $41.2MM across the balance of his first four seasons.<\/p>\n<p>[RELATED: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/07\/rookie-scale-salaries-for-2025-nba-first-round-picks.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Rookie Scale Salaries For 2025 NBA First-Round Picks<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>Outside of the lottery, the Jazz <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/06\/wizards-to-trade-no-18-pick-walter-clayton-jr-to-jazz.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">traded up<\/a> for the draft rights to Florida guard Clayton with the No. 18 pick. The 6\u20192\u2033 guard is set to make nearly $4MM as a rookie, and will earn a total of $19.3MM over the course of his deal.<\/p>\n<p>Clayton, a consensus first-team All-American who helped lead the Gators to the NCAA title last season, logged averages of 18.3 PPG, 4.2 APG, 3.7 RPG and 1.2 SPG in 39 healthy games. He posted a shooting line of .448\/.386\/.875.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jazz have put out a press release officially announcing that they\u2019ve signed first-round draft picks Ace Bailey&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[224,7,423,6,422,427,3972,951],"class_list":{"0":"post-145442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-ace-bailey","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-jazz","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-utah","13":"tag-utah-jazz","14":"tag-utahjazz","15":"tag-walter-clayton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}