Now that the 2025 Summer League has wrapped up, the league is looking forward, both to what recently-selected players will provide their teams as well as to next year\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n
Among league personnel, there\u2019s a near-consensus that the Mavericks\u2018 Cooper Flagg<\/a> will win Rookie of the Year, according to ESPN\u2019s annual survey of executives and scouts from around the league, which was conducted this year by Jeremy Woo<\/a>. Flagg was the overwhelming favorite, with 17 votes, followed by the Spurs\u2018 Dylan Harper<\/a>, who picked up two votes. The Wizards\u2019 Tre Johnson<\/a> also received a vote.<\/p>\n Those polled speculated that while some rookies, like Johnson or Ace Bailey<\/a> of the Jazz, may get a chance to shoot and score more points, Flagg\u2019s overall contributions to a team that will likely be fighting for a play-in spot will push him over the edge.<\/p>\n While he didn\u2019t receive a vote for Rookie of the Year, the Sixers\u2018 VJ Edgecombe<\/a> was the top vote getter for those asked who would end up the best non-Flagg pick in the draft.<\/p>\n \u201cVJ might be Philly\u2019s second-best player by the end of the season, factoring in\u00a0[Joel] Embiid\u2019s uncertain health,\u201d one general manager said.<\/p>\n When asked about the biggest draft steal, the Spurs\u2019 Carter Bryant<\/a> led the way, followed by Joan Beringer<\/a> (Timberwolves) and Kasparas Jakucionis<\/a> (Heat), though this question proved to be the most wide-ranging in terms of responses.<\/p>\n Executives also discussed the 2026 draft, which is widely anticipated to be a star-studded draft class. When asked about who the top pick would be, Kansas\u2019 Darryn Peterson led the way with 12 votes, while BYU\u2019s AJ Dybantsa was a close second with eight.<\/p>\n Peterson was described in the article as \u201cone of the best lead guard prospects in recent memory,\u201d though Woo writes that given the high level of prospects, this race is unlikely to be as open-and-shut as Flagg\u2019s case for number one, which remained relatively unchallenged throughout the 2025 draft cycle.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a total toss-up right now \u2014 by no means is [there a] consensus yet,\u201d one executive said.<\/p>\n Not receiving votes was Duke\u2019s Cameron Boozer, who is also considered one of the elite prospects of the 2026 class. Woo writes that Boozer, along with Nate Ament (Tennessee) and Mikel Brown (Louisville) are expected to round out the top five.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s never easy to predict the future when it comes to the NBA draft, last year\u2019s executive survey had Flagg as the top vote-getter for the number one pick, far ahead of Harper\u2019s second-best vote tally, with Bailey and Edgecombe making up the next two votes.<\/p>\n In that same poll, Reed Sheppard<\/a> and Zach Edey<\/a> were listed as the top candidates for Rookie of the Year, though eventual winner Stephon Castle<\/a> came in a close third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now that the 2025 Summer League has wrapped up, the league is looking forward, both to what recently-selected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[224,2695,7,17047,978,225,17641,226,151,229,18339,6,952,971],"class_list":{"0":"post-194906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ace-bailey","9":"tag-aj-dybantsa","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-cameron-boozer","12":"tag-carter-bryant","13":"tag-cooper-flagg","14":"tag-darryn-peterson","15":"tag-dylan-harper","16":"tag-joan-beringer","17":"tag-kasparas-jakucionis","18":"tag-nate-ament","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-tre-johnson","21":"tag-vj-edgecombe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114917089279345108","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}