NBA Prospect Rankings
The 2026 board exactly as we published it before the draft, and what the room did with it on the night. Career verdicts wait for the rookie season.
How We Said It Should Go
our pre-draft 10-pick mockOur editorial top-10 as published before the draft — talent ordering with a layer of fit, and what we'd have advised a team to do at each pick. Mostly model-aligned; a couple of judgment calls baked in. Where each player actually went is on the right.
- Cameron Boozer P(star) 61% · model #2 · the sure-shot · went #3 · MEM
- Christian Anderson P(star) 58% · model #3 · went #18 · CHA
- AJ Dybantsa P(star) 45% · model #14 · ceiling pick · went #1 · WSH
- Keaton Wagler P(star) 65% · model #1 · advanced metrics disagree · went #5 · LAC
- Jeremy Fears Jr. P(star) 57% · model #4 · undrafted
- Brayden Burries P(star) 53% · model #8 · went #10 · MIL
- Darius Acuff Jr. P(star) 51% · model #10 · went #7 · SAC
- Koa Peat P(star) 45% · model #19 · went #30 · DAL
- Kingston Flemings P(star) 44% · model #20 · went #8 · ATL
- Labaron Philon Jr. P(star) 57% · model #5 · went #22 · PHI
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 | Expected Seasons | Star % | Starter % | Rotation % | Role % | 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% | 14% | 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% | 12% | 15% | 2% |
| 14 | AJ Dybantsa | 5.37 | 45% | 22% | 14% | 13% | 6% |
| 15 | Tyler Tanner | 5.36 | 46% | 18% | 21% | 11% | 4% |
| 16 | Kylan Boswell | 5.35 | 38% | 38% | 7% | 13% | 4% |
| 17 | Zuby Ejiofor | 5.26 | 42% | 23% | 18% | 14% | 3% |
| 18 | Joshua Jefferson | 5.24 | 46% | 15% | 21% | 13% | 5% |
| 19 | Koa Peat | 5.21 | 45% | 16% | 20% | 13% | 6% |
| 20 | Kingston Flemings | 5.15 | 44% | 14% | 24% | 12% | 6% |
Seven Calls We Made
published before the draft · what the room did with eachP(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. Each call now carries where the player actually went — which grades the room's opinion of him, not his career. Those grades start after the rookie season.
- 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 what happenedWent #3 to Memphis. The room agreed, and the call was never the bold one.
- 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 what happenedWent #25 to the Lakers — twenty-five picks ahead of our own board. The swing was real; the room made it before we did.
- 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 what happenedWent #1 to Washington. The room ignored the fade outright. Whether the fade was right is a career question and this page cannot answer it yet.
- 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 · advanced metrics disagree what happenedWent #5 to the Clippers — between our #1 and the asterisk we put on it.
- 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 what happenedSmith went #38, Saunders #32, Jefferson #28. All three landed far below our board: the room stayed asleep exactly as we said it was.
- 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 the headline model doesn't. Miller P(star) 32.4% · P(starter) 30.8% · our #29 | Steinbach P(star) 25.4% · P(rotation) 33.3% · our #44 what happenedSteinbach went #14 to Charlotte — a first-rounder, which is precisely what we said the deeper numbers saw. Miller went #36 and stayed buried.
- 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 what happenedPeterson went #2, Wilson #4, Mara #12 — all three inside the top twelve. Every fade rejected on the night.
How the Draft Actually Went
all 60 picks · against the board aboveloading…
| Pick | Team | Player | Our Rank | Δ | Consensus | Star % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Pick Value Chart
smoothed historicalHistorical per-pick value across the 2010-2021 retrospective. Smoothed across adjacent picks to reduce single-cohort noise.
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Class Strength Index
per-yearPer-class quality vs cross-cohort baseline. Star rate, starter-plus rate, average NBA seasons (anchor at 5).
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