{"id":589322,"date":"2026-02-07T23:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T23:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/589322\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T23:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T23:51:12","slug":"dick-vitale-makes-pick-for-national-player-of-the-year-top-selection-in-2026-nba-draft-ahead-of-home-stretch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/589322\/","title":{"rendered":"Dick Vitale makes pick for National Player of the Year, top selection in 2026 NBA Draft ahead of home stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"

College basketball is now in the heart of the season, with conference races raging and battles for prestigious awards beginning to take shape. ESPN analyst Dick Vitale has been thinking about the latter and he\u2019s got Duke<\/a> star Cameron Boozer<\/a> in the thick of it for the latter.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a candidate for the national player of the year honors. That\u2019s how good he\u2019s been.<\/p>\n

And while there are other superstars out there that certainly could be in contention, Dick Vitale honed in on Cameron Boozer as his top choice. He revealed that during an Alabama<\/a>\u2013Auburn<\/a> game on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The broadcast booth was discussing different player of the year candidates, and BYU<\/a> star AJ Dybantsa<\/a> came up. The context was him being the likely No. 1 overall pick in the next NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes but he\u2019s not the National Player of the Year,\u201d announcer Corey Alexander said.<\/p>\n

To that, Vitale had a response ready to fly. He knew exactly who he wanted to highlight for the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s [Cameron] Boozer,\u201d Dick Vitale said. \u201c[Cameron] Boozer should be the National Player of the Year and Dybantsa would be my choice as the first player taken, followed by (Darryn) Peterson<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

A veritable who\u2019s who of college basketball superstardom this season. While Dybanta came in with the most hype in the class, he only edged out the likes of Peterson by a hair.<\/p>\n

The Kansas star has been elite, averaging 21.1 points and 4.3 rebounds per game on only 27.3 minutes per contest. He has played in just 12 games. Cramping issues have limited him at times this season.<\/p>\n

Dybantsa hasn\u2019t had that issue, and he\u2019s got the numbers to prove it. He\u2019s averaging 25.4 points<\/a>, 7.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game, doing it all for the ranked Cougars.<\/p>\n

But Cameron Boozer has also been out of this world this season. The Duke forward is averaging 23.3 points and 9.9 rebounds per game. He\u2019s also chipping in 4.0 assists per contest, showing some sweet court vision in the process.<\/p>\n

So who will win the national player of the year award? There are some insanely deserving choices this year. But Dick Vitale likes Cameron Boozer to take it home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College basketball is now in the heart of the season, with conference races raging and battles for prestigious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,5392,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-589322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cameron-boozer-25-columbus","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116032037561806277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589322","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=589322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}