Utah Jazz rookie Ace Bailey, the No. 5 pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, is parting ways with manager Omar Cooper, multiple league sources have informed The Athletic.<\/p>\n
Bailey, a 6-foot-9 forward out of Rutgers, is seeking new representation. He and his camp have done interviews to this point, league sources say, but a decision on who he will ultimately go with has not been made.<\/p>\n
Cooper\u2019s son, Sharife, recently signed with the Washington Wizards on a two-way contract. In the pre-draft process, Cooper advised Bailey not to work out for any of the teams that owned a top-five pick. The wide belief is that Cooper wanted Bailey to land with the Wizards, who owned the No. 6 pick. The Jazz interviewed Bailey at the pre-draft combine in Chicago. But they were not able to get him into Utah for a pre-draft workout.<\/p>\n
The only team in the top five that came close to getting Bailey in, according to league sources, was the Philadelphia 76ers, who owned the No. 3 pick. Bailey and his camp committed to a workout, but it fell through, and the Sixers selected guard VJ Edgecombe with the third pick.<\/p>\n
Bailey is slated to compete for a spot in head coach Will Hardy\u2019s starting lineup. At the very least, Bailey should become a rotation player in his rookie season.<\/p>\n
(Photo: Sarah Stier \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sep 24, 2025<\/p>\n
Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n
Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n
Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Utah Jazz rookie Ace Bailey, the No. 5 pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, is parting ways with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,155,6,15,30457],"class_list":{"0":"post-392375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-draft","12":"tag-utah-jazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115257394050987184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}