NBA Prospect Rankings — 2026 Class
Three blocks: how we'd run the first 10 picks of the 2026 draft, our top-20 board by projected career outcome, and the seven calls we'd defend to a GM tonight. Career outcomes are calibrated P(star) / P(starter) / P(rotation) / P(role) / P(bust) probabilities — distributions, not single-point ceilings.
Live Draft Tracker LIVE
loading…Pulled from ESPN every 30 min. Pre-draft this is the pick → team map (60 slots). On draft night each pick fills in as it's announced, with our model's rank on the prospect next to it.
2026 How the Draft Should Go
our 10-pick mockEditorial top-10 — talent ordering with a layer of fit and what we'd advise a team to do at each pick. Mostly model-aligned; a couple of judgment calls baked in.
- Cameron Boozer P(star) 61% · model #2 · the sure-shot
- Christian Anderson P(star) 58% · model #3
- AJ Dybantsa P(star) 45% · model #14 · ceiling pick
- Keaton Wagler P(star) 65% · model #1 · ⚠ ADV_WARNING — discount the headline
- Jeremy Fears Jr. P(star) 57% · model #4
- Brayden Burries P(star) 53% · model #8
- Darius Acuff Jr. P(star) 51% · model #10
- Koa Peat P(star) 45% · model #19
- Kingston Flemings P(star) 44% · model #20
- Labaron Philon Jr. P(star) 57% · model #5
Our Top 20 — Career Projections
v4 ensemble · sorted by expected NBA seasonsP(class) columns sum to 1 across the five tier outcomes — calibrated probabilities, not arg-max chips. A high P(star) with low P(bust) is the cleanest signal.
| # | Prospect | Exp seasons | P(star) | P(starter) | P(rotation) | P(role) | P(bust) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Keaton Wagler ⚠ | 6.32 | 65% | 16% | 6% | 9% | 4% |
| 2 | Cameron Boozer | 6.14 | 61% | 16% | 12% | 8% | 3% |
| 3 | Christian Anderson | 5.99 | 58% | 19% | 8% | 11% | 4% |
| 4 | Jeremy Fears Jr. | 5.97 | 57% | 21% | 6% | 11% | 5% |
| 5 | Labaron Philon Jr. | 5.96 | 57% | 19% | 8% | 13% | 3% |
| 6 | Emanuel Sharp | 5.80 | 52% | 22% | 11% | 10% | 5% |
| 7 | John Blackwell | 5.76 | 57% | 13% | 8% | 16% | 5% |
| 8 | Brayden Burries | 5.72 | 53% | 19% | 12% | 11% | 5% |
| 9 | Richie Saunders | 5.65 | 51% | 19% | 13% | 15% | 2% |
| 10 | Darius Acuff Jr. | 5.65 | 51% | 20% | 13% | 12% | 4% |
| 11 | Nate Ament | 5.61 | 54% | 13% | 13% | 16% | 4% |
| 12 | Braden Smith | 5.58 | 50% | 17% | 18% | 13% | 2% |
| 13 | Henri Veesaar | 5.40 | 41% | 30% | — | — | 2% |
| 14 | AJ Dybantsa | 5.37 | 45% | 22% | 14% | 13% | 6% |
| 15 | Tyler Tanner | 5.36 | 46% | 18% | — | — | 4% |
| 16 | Kylan Boswell | 5.35 | 38% | 38% | — | — | 4% |
| 17 | Zuby Ejiofor | 5.26 | 42% | 22% | — | — | 3% |
| 18 | Joshua Jefferson | 5.24 | 46% | 15% | 21% | 13% | 6% |
| 19 | Koa Peat | 5.21 | 45% | 16% | — | — | 6% |
| 20 | Kingston Flemings | 5.15 | 44% | 14% | — | — | 6% |
Seven Calls We'd Defend Tonight
tonight's edge · with career-outcome receiptsP(star) is the model's calibrated probability the player ends up an NBA star. P(starter) is the next tier down. Bust risk in parens.
- Cameron Boozer is a real top-3. Both model variants agree, consensus is already there — clean call, not the bold one. P(star) 60.7% · P(starter) 15.7% · bust 3.4% · our #2 · cons #1
- Sergio De Larrea is the biggest swing of the night. Liga ACB point guard whose playmaking translates better than any international guard we've measured. Closer to a Hayes / LaMelo tier than the consensus board has him. P(star) 27.1% · P(starter) 22.8% · bust 8.5% · our #50
- AJ Dybantsa is a fade — fully validated. Market has him #2 overall, we have him #14, and six independent angles in the model say the same thing. Not a single signal flickering. P(star) 45.3% · P(starter) 22.0% · bust 5.5% · our #14 · cons #2
- Even our own #1 gets an asterisk. Keaton Wagler tops the board but the advanced metrics don't back him — looks like a shooting-volume artifact. Discount him as you read the board. P(star) 64.8% · P(starter) 15.7% · bust 4.3% · our #1 · cons #6 · ⚠ ADV_WARNING
- Three gems consensus is sleeping on by 15-30 picks. Braden Smith, Richie Saunders, Joshua Jefferson. The model loves all three; the room doesn't. Smith P(star) 50.0% · our #12 · cons #32 | Saunders P(star) 51.1% · our #9 · cons #48 | Jefferson P(star) 45.7% · our #18 · cons #46
- Two first-round profiles buried in the second. Baba Miller and Hannes Steinbach. Even our headline model is undershooting them — the deeper advanced stats find a first-rounder where it doesn't. Miller P(star) 32.4% · P(starter) 30.8% · our #29 | Steinbach P(star) 25.4% · P(rotation) 33.3% · our #44
- Three biggest fades on highly-touted names. Caleb Wilson, Aday Mara, Darryn Peterson. When the gap between consensus and us is this wide, we're saying the room is wrong. Wilson P(star) 26.0% · our #52 · cons #3 | Mara P(star) 12.9% · our #63 · cons #10 | Peterson P(star) 44.1% · bust 12.3% · our #28 · cons #4
Pick Value Chart
smoothed historicalHistorical per-pick value across the 2010-2021 retrospective. Smoothed across adjacent picks to reduce single-cohort noise.
Class Strength Index
per-yearPer-class quality vs cross-cohort baseline. Star rate, starter-plus rate, average NBA seasons (anchor at 5). ★ marks right-censoring-vulnerable cohorts (2019+): "starter" requires 5+ seasons at MPG≥28 + GP≥50, so cohorts with < 8 NBA seasons completed have suppressed rates by construction. The 2021 "weakest class" label is partly an artifact — interpret with caution.