Alex\u00a0Karaban will be hoping that the wave of artificial intelligence adoption has reached NBA front offices.<\/p>\n
USA Today published a 2026 NBA mock draft Tuesday<\/a> that was created by Microsoft Copilot’s artificial intelligence chatbot, forecasting the first 30 selections in next month’s NBA Draft. And while the UConn men’s basketball<\/a> power forward has largely been projected as an early second-round pick after a historic college career in Storrs, Karaban snuck into the first round of USA Today’s AI-generated projections.\u00a0<\/p>\n Karaban is predicted to join Cleveland as the No. 29 overall pick, adding some front-court shooting to a Cavaliers squad that was swept out of the Eastern Conference Finals by the New York Knicks on\u00a0Monday evening.<\/p>\n “Cleveland needs size, shooting and decision-making on the wing,” Microsoft Copilot’s AI chatbot writes about Karaban, according to USA Today. Karaban’s high-octane perimeter shooting and heady decision-making were on full display across his four seasons at UConn, connecting on 292 3-pointers at a 37% clip as he helped the Huskies to two national titles and another championship-game appearance this past season. Still, the 23-year-old’s advanced age and dubious athleticism have limited his NBA Draft ceiling, with ESPN tabbing him as an early second-round pick in its\u00a0latest mock draft released after the Scouting Combine.\u00a0<\/p>\n Microsoft Copilot didn’t provide the same bump to Karaban’s UConn co-star, Tarris Reed Jr., who was omitted from USA Today’s 30-player list. Reed was selected No. 37 overall in ESPN’s latest projections after previously earning a first-round grade following his historic Final Four run.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex\u00a0Karaban will be hoping that the wave of artificial intelligence adoption has reached NBA front offices. USA Today…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[87115,7,87116,6,12],"class_list":["post-745151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-all-daily-sites","tag-basketball","tag-ct-insider","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116645560564147887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745151","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=745151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
” … Plug-and-play forward who complements Harden\/Mitchell without needing usage.”<\/p>\n