Jeremy Woo
Tim Bontemps
Tim Bontemps
ESPN Senior Writer
Tim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what’s impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.
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The NBA’s regular season has more than a week remaining, but many team executives’ focus has already shifted to May 10. That’s the day the league will conduct its annual lottery to determine the draft order for what has a chance to be a special 2026 class.
With the men’s Final Four happening this weekend, what are league insiders saying about BYU wing AJ Dybantsa, Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke forward Cameron Boozer and other top prospects?
We asked more than a dozen NBA scouts and executives for their thoughts on the potential draft order, the elite players and the glut of point guards who could define the early part of Round 1.
Who do you expect to go No. 1?
With Dybantsa, Peterson and Boozer all done with their freshman seasons, a tight race for the No. 1 pick will play out behind closed doors.
And while teams continue to stress that next month’s lottery will play a major factor, the majority of scouts and executives interviewed see Dybantsa as the favorite.
“I guess you’d rather fail with [AJ] and his upside, than not,” a Western Conference general manager told ESPN. “And I know Peterson has upside, maybe Boozer’s upside is a little bit less. … I just think that [AJ], because he’s 6-9 and he could be like 6-10, 230 [pounds] by the time he’s 25 years old, he could just be a monster. I think you’ve just got to go down swinging with him if you go down.”
“I think Peterson is the most talented guy,” an Eastern Conference executive said, “but the injury stuff is a real question. That’s a valid concern, and it’s been a weird year. But he’s a huge talent, and he was No. 1 at the start of the season for a reason.”
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Some executives preferred Peterson, who endured an uneven season at Kansas that featured jaw-dropping moments of brilliance mixed with injury absences and stretches when he made little impact on the floor.
Others favored Boozer, who just finished one of the great statistical seasons in college basketball history — Boozer is the only player in the country to finish in the top 12 in points (22.5) and rebounds (10.2) per game — in powering Duke to within one 35-foot miracle of reaching the Final Four.
Either way, as a Western Conference executive laid out, the deep talent pool creates a chance for this year’s draft to go in many directions.
“I think this draft is, in some ways, similar to the [2024 Zaccharie] Risacher year, but on a higher level,” they said. “That year it was like, ‘Is anyone going to be really good?’ This year, it’s like, ‘Well, s—, there’s a lot of guys.’ You have high confidence that at least some of them are going to be really, really good. You’re not really sure which ones.
“You don’t want to be drafting at 1 and end up with the fifth-best player.”
Where do you stand on Peterson’s draft stock?
Even as Dybantsa has solidified his case for No. 1, nobody is willing to completely rule out Peterson. The most talented scorer in this freshman class, Peterson was plagued by leg injuries and cramping issues that limited him to 24 games.
“It’s definitely a thing,” an East scout said. “If you’re a team that’s in the mix for the No. 1 or 2 pick, you’re going to have to get a ton of information on what happened, and why.”
Getting more information on Peterson’s body, most importantly whether any of the issues will be longer-lasting concerns, was labeled by many league insiders as a critical part of the predraft process. When Peterson is right, such as when he thoroughly outplayed Dybantsa in the first half of their showdown in Lawrence, Kansas, in front of dozens of NBA executives, he looks like a special player.
“I think it forces you to start asking a bunch of questions that you normally wouldn’t have to ask for a guy like [Peterson],” a West executive said. “Just the management of his situation and his [health] exposed him to some level of further investigation, past the already intense investigation a No. 1 pick would go under.
“In the coming months, there is a non-zero chance that the root of this issue, depending on what it is, could affect his stock.”
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Where should Boozer slot in?
Few players have entered the draft process in a more fascinating position.
The son of an All-Star power forward, Boozer will enter the league with a long history of on-court success. He has won at every level at which he has played, including a dominant statistical campaign that helped carry Duke to the Elite Eight.
All of that screams top pick, but Boozer’s draft profile is filled with questions about his potential lack of explosiveness and quickness, and whether he’s a one-position player at power forward.
“I’m not a huge fan of a one-position 4,” an East scout said. “If that’s what he is, then you have to build your team specifically around that, given his lack of versatility.”
One East executive compared the conversation around Boozer’s draft stock to another highly touted player who won at every level but had athleticism questions coming into the league: Luka Doncic.
“He doesn’t look the part athletically, so people put limits on him,” they said of Boozer. “I don’t know why people keep putting a ceiling on him before he’s 19. There’s a lot of ways to talk about athleticism, not just how high you can jump, and he always plays the most efficient way he can to help his team win.”
Virtually everyone interviewed agreed that Boozer’s game has the highest floor of any player in the draft, however.
“I think people have gone numb to him and the production and the archetype,” another East executive said. “The versatility he brings offensively is 1-of-1 in this class.
“I understand the problems: the finishing, lack of rim protection, heavy legs. But he is an offensive catalyst to me — [think Domantas] Sabonis, [Alperen] Sengun, any of the others who have been knocked for athleticism. IQ and feel have overcome so much. I think he has answered every question he can.”
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Cameron Boozer protects the rim with an emphatic rejection
Cameron Boozer makes a great defensive play for Duke with a block.
Is Wilson locked in at No. 4?
North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson, the No. 4 prospect in ESPN’s top 100 rankings, was a breakout star this season, taking a major developmental leap as a freshman and establishing himself as a likely top-five pick. The physical, toolsy forward has drawn comparisons to Pascal Siakam and Aaron Gordon — high-energy, versatile defenders who have the skill and playmaking ability to help drive secondary offense.
Wilson’s draft momentum slowed thanks to a run of bad injury luck: breaking his left hand Feb. 10, then his right thumb in practice in early March while working toward a postseason return.
That hasn’t stopped him from picking up many fans along the way.
“Caleb has been more productive and played harder in college than [Atlanta Hawks All-Star] Jalen Johnson, who in college was more perimeter oriented,” an East executive said. “If you thought Cam [Boozer] is Al Horford or something like that, and you thought Caleb was like Jalen, then you could go Caleb.”
Multiple scouts and executives believe Wilson’s game, because of his combination of length, potential and athleticism, screams high-level upside and could vault him into the top three of the draft between now and late June. His candidacy is viewed as more based on fit, ultimately depending on how the lottery falls and team needs.
“The intel piece on him is incredible,” another East executive said.
“I think he could easily go three,” an East scout said. “I could see him being preferred to Boozer there.”
Which guard fits best at No. 5?
A clear consensus is starting to build for Dybantsa, Peterson, Boozer and Wilson atop draft boards. After that, there’s a glut of ballhandling guards who will determine the direction of the draft.
And, depending on who’s talking, there’s a different ranking among Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr., Houston’s Kingston Flemings and Illinois’ Keaton Wagler, with some preferring Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr. and Arizona’s Brayden Burries, too.
Several executives cited how important combine measurements could be in this process, particularly for Acuff (listed at 6-3) and Flemings (6-4). That duo and Wagler (6-6) are widely considered the strongest candidates for the No. 5 spot.
Let’s start with Acuff, an explosive scoring guard with concerns about his size and defense at the next level. His final two months of the season, which included an SEC tournament title run, won over a lot of people around the NBA, but those shortcomings will make team construction and fit a pivotal factor.
“Just the shotmaking, killer instinct he’s shown, his ability to score at all three levels,” an East executive said. “His defense does worry me some, but he has had to carry a pretty large load.”
“I think there’s never been a worse time to build around bad defensive guards,” a West executive said. “We see this time and time again — the flashiest offensive impact in the draft doesn’t necessarily end up winning the most.
“It ends up being, you know, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday and Alex Caruso, go down the list. And we kind of have proof of concept of this right now on the trade market. Trae Young was traded for basically nothing. … People fall in love with guards, and I know of a bunch of teams who are falling in love with Acuff right now.”
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Flemings, meanwhile, is a strong and quick two-way player who earned plaudits for wanting to play for Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, an old-school taskmaster and disciplinarian. His shot and size, however, are potential concerns.
“Kingston operates a little bit differently — a better overall package when you look at both ends of the floor,” a West executive said. “He’s really impressive … to come in as a freshman and play the role he’s played on one of the top teams in the country and on a team that notoriously isn’t easy to play for if you don’t play hard.”
“It’s so impressive that the big shots are his, on a team with experienced guards that have been there and won at that school,” an East scout said. “You see his shot form, but I’ll bet on all the other stuff and we can work with his jump shot.”
Wagler, on the other hand, is a remarkable story, having burst onto the scene during the Illini’s run to the Final Four, turning himself into a mid-lottery pick in the process. A three-star high school recruit who entered the season with no national profile, Wagler’s ability to play both on and off the ball at his size gives him added role versatility.
“When people talk about ceiling arguments, they get into the physical stuff,” an East executive said. “But the thing that unites all of the top [NBA] players is being elite mentally, and that’s the thing that gets underrated in all of this.”
“[Wagler] is going to have to get stronger,” a West executive said, “but I’ll take my chances on a 6-6 guy who can basically run the show. And he plays with such tremendous pace and feel.”
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