{"id":50339,"date":"2023-05-20T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2023-05-20T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=50339"},"modified":"2023-05-20T21:28:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-21T01:28:14","slug":"amari-bailey-2023-draft-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/05\/20\/amari-bailey-2023-draft-profile\/","title":{"rendered":"Amari Bailey 2023 Draft Profile"},"content":{"rendered":"

A homegrown talent who made an impact in his first year, UCLA guard <\/span>Amari Bailey<\/b><\/a> has emerged as a standout two-way player, and he\u2019s looking to become <\/span>the 112th Bruin to make the jump from UCLA to the NBA<\/span><\/a>. Luckily for Bailey, he has the skills to make that dream a reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

College Career<\/h3>\n

A five-star recruit from elite SoCal prep school Sierra Canyon, Bailey was ranked <\/span>fifth on ESPN\u2019s top 100<\/span><\/a> and lived up to the hype despite a slow start. His averages of 11.2 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game on 50-39-70 splits earned him a spot on the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team. He was also named to the All-Pac-12 Tournament team, notably scoring <\/span>a career-high 26 points with six threes<\/span><\/a> as UCLA defeated Colorado in the quarterfinals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jon Christon, a sports staff writer for UCLA\u2019s newspaper, <\/span>The Daily Bruin<\/span><\/i>, touched on Bailey\u2019s stellar postseason when grading the team\u2019s guards, <\/span>noting<\/span><\/a>, \u201c<\/span>Bailey arguably had the best postseason of any Bruin, averaging 17.3 points per game across six contests. He was one of the few Bruins who was able to consistently get to the rim in tournament play, with his paint attempts second to only senior guard\/forward <\/span>Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/b><\/a>, and he was the team\u2019s best shooter from deep at 46.7%.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Strengths<\/h3>\n

Standing at 6-foot-5 with a 185-pound frame, Bailey is a talented three-level scorer. He\u2019s able to get to his spots easily, whether it\u2019s through his crafty handles and spin moves or backing down defenders to finish at the rim. The lefty is also an adept catch-and-shooter, particularly from three.<\/span><\/p>\n

Defensively, <\/span>Bailey excels at jumping passing lanes from the help side<\/span><\/a>, averaging 1.1 steals per game. He is also skilled at staying in front of his man and forcing turnovers. These are all key contributions to <\/span>one of the best defenses in the Pac-12<\/span><\/a>, as the Bruins led the conference in steals per game (8.38), overall steals (310), and turnover margin (+5.65). Bailey\u2019s ability to play defense without fouling (1.7 fouls per game) is another key asset for the 19-year-old.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let the low assist average fool you because <\/span>Bailey is also a solid playmaker<\/span><\/a>. He\u2019s a smart, unselfish player on offense, finding open cutters and shooters with ease. He also uses his threat as a finisher to his advantage, drawing defenses in before finding an open big man for an easy bucket. Though Bailey\u2019s aggressiveness as a scorer cannot be denied, his passing deserves respect, a skill he can only improve on during the draft combine and in his rookie year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Weaknesses<\/h3>\n

As great as his passing is, Bailey still needs to improve on ball security. He recorded 73 turnovers to 65 assists in his freshman year. As a facilitating two-guard, that can\u2019t happen against NBA defenses. Additionally, that 39% mark from three is deceiving due to the fact he only took 54 triples and made 21. And even though Bailey is an effective finisher, he\u2019ll have to become better at scoring with his non-dominant right hand if defenses take away the drives to his left.<\/span><\/p>\n

NBA Player Comparison<\/h3>\n

Alex Caruso<\/b><\/a>. Both Bailey and Caruso are scrappy defenders and crafty finishers at the rim. They also share a relatively low but effective three-point volume, though Caruso\u2019s perimeter attempts have increased from 43 to 151 in six years, and his three-point percentage has generally hovered between 33 and 40 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

NBA Draft Projection<\/h3>\n

Early second-round<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A homegrown talent who made an impact in his first year, UCLA guard Amari Bailey has emerged as a standout two-way player, and he\u2019s looking to become the 112th Bruin to make the jump from UCLA to the NBA. Luckily for Bailey, he has the skills to make that dream a reality. College Career A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4265,"featured_media":50353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,556],"tags":[4577,4758,828],"class_list":["post-50339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba-draft","tag-2023-nba-draft","tag-amari-bailey","tag-ucla-bruins"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}