Hey, Ace, listen up for a minute here.
I get your camp’s hesitation about coming to Utah, I really do. I’m originally from back east, too.
But, man, it’ll be OK.
Like a lot of other places, it has its quirks and some people — young NBA players, with Benjamins hanging out of their pockets, for example — might find certain aspects of it downright weird. It has its charms, though, too. We’ll get into that more in a few seconds.
Religion is big here, but it’s not the only thing. You’ll see a church on every other street, but many of those churches have basketball courts attached to them. The game is that huge around these parts. God-fearing folks are in no short supply, but they love a 6-9 small forward who can stop and pop and soar to the rim and flush the rock like a madman. Salt Lake City isn’t exactly an Amish village, not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that we don’t ride around in horse-drawn buggies delivering milk to our neighbors. A plate of homemade cookies, maybe. But we don’t build barns on the reg. We don’t have multiple wives, most of us, anyway.
Our politics are strange, our state legislature even stranger, but that’s something the whole country is dealing with right about now. It’s all right. Our democracy will survive, our Constitution will remain intact, just a bit tattered. DEI policies and LGBTQ rights are under attack here, but we’re doing what we can.
Ace Bailey poses for a photo with NBA commissioner Adam Silver after being selected fifth by the Utah Jazz in the first round of the NBA basketball draft, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Money is important to people in the Beehive State — that’s what we call ourselves, because we like to think we work hard — and fortunately for you, you’ll be swimming in cash, given what the Jazz will pay you. Money in Utah is every bit as green as it is anywhere else, including Washington and New Orleans and Brooklyn, the cities you thought you wanted to get drafted to.
We have dusty sagebrush to the left of us, spectacular mountains to the right, red rocks to the south and a shrinking salty lake to the northwest that might choke us all out with toxins one day, but that’s like at least a decade away. Don’t worry about that. Our state leaders certainly don’t. And we have growing thirsty metropolises all around. This place is booming with growth, with or without water. Seems a lot of people actually want to live here.
Our communities have a lot of white people in them. And that’s probably different than what you’re accustomed to. We have Nordic types here, people named Jensen and Anderson and Olsen and Christiansen and Nelson and Nielsen and Peterson. And those are just the surnames. As for first names, well … you’ll meet a LaVerne and a LaVerl and a Brandon and a Jaxon and a Taysom and a Hyrum and an Oakley and a McKell and an Emma and an Ammon and a Stockton.
The good news is that that last one is somewhat popular because there was a certain point guard here by that name who could do extraordinary things with a basketball — and people were captivated and impressed by that. If you come here and play well, and act like you like this place, mark this down here and now — folks will name their kids after you … Ace Jensen, Ace Anderson, Ace Olsen, etc. You’ll definitely get some Baileys mixed in there, too.
That’s kinda cool.
Utahns love their sports and they adore their athletes, most of them. College and pro. They glom onto them as though they’re family, especially if they win for them. It might be a bit transactional in that way. A recent survey ranked Jazz fans as the most positive in and around the NBA. Average better than 15 points a game and, to them, you’d be a hero. Average 20, and the governorship might be within reach. Average 25 and you’re a demigod.
As for playing for the Jazz, there are things to consider. First off, they want you, they need you. They are in sore need of a star, and that’s what you’ve said you are. Go to Boston or Los Angeles or Houston or San Antonio and you’d be given a role to play, alongside other big names. In Utah, you are the big name. You and Lauri Markkanen. That’s it.
(Noah K. Murray) Former Rutgers guard Ace Bailey (4) looks on during introductions before an NCAA college basketball game against Purdue, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Piscataway, N.J.
You want to dance into the spotlight, this is where you can do exactly that. Will Hardy will teach you more of what you must yet learn, but he’d also turn you loose, allow you to flat out ball, and what more could a self-interested 18-year-old aspirant desire? You don’t want to go to a team where you’re just kind of a plug-in, an also-ran. No. You want to be the straw that stirs the drink, even if you have to lie to get one here. In Utah, you can do and be that, the straw, I mean.
You can be the Ace in the hole. And not the Ace in a hellhole. We’re not perfect, but we’re not that.
The club scene here might not be what it is in West Hollywood or South Beach or Manhattan, but it’s better than you think. Not great, not bad. There’s a whole lot of vibrant young people living here.
So, yeah, it’ll be OK, Ace. Come on over. Join in with the Jazz. Duck out down a back alley from the chatter that’s been so loud on talk shows everywhere, the ones ripping you for being an entitled punk. Don’t worry about reinventing the system used to distribute talent in the NBA via the draft. You don’t want to take that on. The need for that reinvention is an argument that can and maybe should be had. But not by you, not like that.
You’ve already shown up in Utah. Now accept your rookie contract bound to pay you in excess of $41 million and show the world what you can do. If you show how great you are, and you don’t like playing for the Jazz, then do what other stars have done after they sign their mega-deal in a few years and demand a trade, then. Not now.
Uh-huh, we know, a few others in basketball and football have hacked their way through and onto this boo-hoo-I-wanna-do-it-my-way path before. But it isn’t hip, not cool, starting your pro career off like that.
Washington, New Orleans and Brooklyn aren’t exactly garden spots. Maybe Salt Lake isn’t, either, but, do what we do, enjoy the good stuff and just sort of put a potted plant on the rest of it. If you work, it’ll all work out.
The Jazz and their fans, after all, are the ones who suffered through a tanked season to wind up with you, after Lady Luck kicked them in the onions in the lottery. You weren’t the Jazz’s first choice, either. They would have preferred Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper. But now they have you. They’re happy with it. They’ll make the most of it.
Time for you to do and be the same.
