{"id":565289,"date":"2026-01-28T01:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/565289\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T01:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:57:17","slug":"flagg-knueppel-edgecombe-top-rising-stars-draft-picks-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/565289\/","title":{"rendered":"Flagg, Knueppel, Edgecombe top Rising Stars draft picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA — NBA Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony made Dallas Mavericks<\/a> forward Cooper Flagg<\/a>, the No. 1 pick in June’s NBA draft, the first pick in Tuesday night’s draft of the three teams made up of rookie and sophomore players in the Rising Stars Challenge.<\/p>\n

The first four picks, in fact, were all members of the 2025 NBA draft class, with Flagg being followed by Charlotte Hornets<\/a> guard Kon Knueppel<\/a>, who was taken with the second pick by Tracy McGrady, while Vince Carter took Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> guard VJ Edgecombe<\/a> and New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> forward Derik Queen<\/a> with the third and fourth selections.<\/p>\n

Rounding out the three teams, which were drafted on NBC’s pregame show on Peacock Tuesday night ahead of 76ers-Bucks here in South Philadelphia, were the following:<\/p>\n

Team Melo: Flagg, Houston Rockets<\/a> guard Reed Sheppard<\/a>; San Antonio Spurs<\/a> guards Stephon Castle<\/a> and Dylan Harper<\/a>; Pelicans guard Jeremiah Fears<\/a>; Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> center Donovan Clingan<\/a>; and Toronto Raptors<\/a> forward Collin Murray-Boyles<\/a><\/p>\n

Team T-Mac: Knueppel, Miami Heat<\/a> center Kel’el Ware<\/a>, Washington Wizards<\/a> guard Tre Johnson<\/a> and center Alex Sarr<\/a>; Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> guard Ajay Mitchell<\/a>; Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> guard Jaylon Tyson<\/a>; and Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> guard Cam Spencer<\/a><\/p>\n

Team Vince: Edgecombe, Queen, Wizards forward Kyshawn George<\/a>; Chicago Bulls<\/a> forward Matas Buzelis<\/a>; Brooklyn Nets<\/a> guard Egor Demin<\/a>; and Memphis Grizzlies forwardsCedric Coward<\/a> and Jaylen Wells<\/a><\/p>\n

The fourth team, made up of players who have participated in the G League this season, consists of two first-round picks from June’s draft: Trail Blazers center Yang Hansen<\/a>, the 16th pick, and LA Clippers<\/a> center Yanic Konan Niederhauser<\/a>, the 30th pick; four players on two-way contracts inDavid Jones Garcia<\/a> (Spurs), Tristan Newton (Houston Rockets),Alijah Martin<\/a> (Toronto Raptors) and Ron Harper Jr<\/a>. (Boston Celtics<\/a>); and Sean East II, who plays for the G League’s Salt Lake City Stars.<\/p>\n

The four teams will play three games, with the winners of the first two games playing in the third to determine the overall champion, on Friday, Feb. 13, as part of All-Star festivities at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA — NBA Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony made Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 pick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[76916,7,36370,473,193,36376,13206,686,149,4057,18635,18633,130,18629,9697,76665,3527,18630,194,18631,973,166,177,18634,6,470,67,179,207,471,18628,474,36375,476,468,36366],"class_list":["post-565289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-76916","tag-basketball","tag-castle-stephon","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-clingan-donovan","tag-coward-cedric","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-demin-egor","tag-edgecombe-vj","tag-espn","tag-fears-jeremiah","tag-flagg-cooper","tag-george-kyshawn","tag-hansen-yang","tag-harper-dylan","tag-houston-rockets","tag-knueppel-kon","tag-matas-buzelis","tag-mavericks","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-murray-boyles-collin","tag-nba","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-news","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-queen-derik","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sheppard-reed","tag-toronto-raptors","tag-washington-wizards","tag-wells-jaylen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565289","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=565289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}