{"id":731644,"date":"2026-05-11T16:06:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/731644\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T16:06:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:06:46","slug":"expectations-already-sky-high-for-the-nbas-draft-class-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/731644\/","title":{"rendered":"Expectations already sky-high for the NBA\u2019s draft class of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

AJ Dybantsa is calling it already: The NBA draft class of 2026, in his mind, is one of the best in the history of the league.<\/p>\n

And nobody has even been drafted yet.<\/p>\n

If there is one characteristic that the players expected to be at the very top of next month\u2019s draft share, it is confidence. They know they\u2019re good, and they don\u2019t mind telling you that they\u2019re good. And for the teams now in position to get those top players \u2014 Washington at No. 1, Utah at No. 2, Memphis at No. 3 and Chicago at No. 4<\/a> \u2014 the next few weeks are going to be teeming with promise.<\/p>\n

Chicago Bulls will have the No. 4 NBA draft pick after moving up 5 spots in the lottery: \u2018I almost fainted\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I\u2019m in this draft class, I\u2019m going to say we\u2019re one of the best draft classes,\u201d said Dybantsa, who led Division I men\u2019s college basketball in scoring this past season. \u201cWe\u2019ll see how that pans out and how our careers pan out, but if you ask me right now, I think we\u2019re one of the best draft classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fair enough.<\/p>\n

An unforeseen trade or something popping up in the medical exams that will take place over the next few weeks could change things, but for now, it seems like the first four names Commissioner Adam Silver will call on June 23 will be BYU\u2019s Dybantsa, Kansas\u2019 Darryn Peterson, Duke\u2019s Cameron Boozer and North Carolina\u2019s Caleb Wilson.<\/p>\n

They are not the only four good players in this draft. Far from it, it seems. But there does seem to be a significant amount of star power at the top, which made Sunday\u2019s draft lottery feel perhaps a bit more consequential than others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it can be the best ever,\u201d Wilson said when asked how good the Class of 2026 can be. \u201cWe have a deep draft and I feel like everybody wants to play hard and prove themselves. And it\u2019s just a matter of time before we can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indiana was devastated not to get a pick after having the league\u2019s second-worst record this season. The Pacers \u2014 who made the NBA Finals a year ago \u2014 surrendered the No. 5 pick to the Los Angeles Clippers to help pay off the trade made this season for center Ivica Zubac, who surely is going to help Indiana when Tyrese Haliburton returns from his torn Achilles.<\/p>\n

But to miss out on grabbing some of the talent available this year, put simply, that hurt Pacers President of Basketball Operations Kevin Pritchard.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, it stings<\/a>,\u201d Pritchard said. \u201cBut wait \u2018til next season. Let\u2019s give this group an opportunity to go compete for a championship, because they\u2019ve proven they can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wizards President Michael Winger likes to get into the math of things, and he knows a 14% chance isn\u2019t exactly great. But it was as good as anyone else in that draft lottery, and in the end it was good enough to get Washington that No. 1 pick.<\/p>\n

But why?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a compelling answer for that. I think that ultimately it was just our time. I think it was time to get that pick,\u201d Winger said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s because there\u2019s a special athlete at the top of the draft that we want or organizationally we\u2019re ready for a player like that, whatever the case may be \u2026 the basketball gods decided that this was our year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wizards were the big winner. They weren\u2019t the only winner.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City gets a lottery pick in this draft because of the years and years and years that general manager Sam Presti spent on collecting both good players and draft capital. That means the reigning champions \u2014 maybe back-to-back champions by draft time \u2014 will only get even better.<\/p>\n

The Clippers got a top-five pick, Memphis gets a No. 3 pick, Chicago\u2019s rebuild will see the Bulls land an extremely good player, and Utah \u2014 which was fined $500,000 this year for sitting some players in the fourth quarters of games \u2014 is sitting at No. 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgree to disagree,\u201d is what Jazz owner Ryan Smith famously wrote when the NBA hit him for the half-million-dollar fine. The credo now might be wait and see; the Jazz have a lot of young talent, and now will get even deeper on that front.<\/p>\n

Jazz guard Keyonte George was at Sunday\u2019s lottery. He said the Jazz are keeping the receipts \u2014 his way of saying yes, Utah has taken note of all the tanking talk that dogged the team this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure we go at our own pace, understand we\u2019re a new group and we\u2019re on our journey to something special,\u201d George said. \u201cBut yeah, as a group, we\u2019ll have a chip on our shoulder for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of basketball left to be played this season. New York is in the NBA\u2019s final four already, awaiting Cleveland or Detroit in the Eastern Conference finals. Oklahoma City can get back to the Western Conference finals on Monday, and if the Thunder get there they\u2019ll be waiting for either San Antonio or Minnesota.<\/p>\n

But draft talk is picking up speed. And given how much talent is out there, that\u2019s understandable.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people are saying we\u2019re the best class in the last 10 years,\u201d Peterson said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re going to try our best to be that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AJ Dybantsa is calling it already: The NBA draft class of 2026, in his mind, is one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[88578,7,920,7146,17047,919,329,3824,17641,6,12,25157,338],"class_list":["post-731644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-bulls","tag-aj-dybansta","tag-basketball","tag-bulls","tag-caleb-wilson","tag-cameron-boozer","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-chicagobulls","tag-darryn-peterson","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-nba-draft-no-1-pick","tag-nba-draft-order"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116556803866110818","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731644","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=731644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}