{"id":770195,"date":"2026-06-25T12:45:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/770195\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:45:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:45:31","slug":"dukes-isaiah-evans-among-those-to-land-on-night-2-of-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/770195\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke’s Isaiah Evans among those to land on Night 2 of NBA draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

It took a little longer than he had hoped, but Duke’sIsaiah Evans<\/a>found his landing spot in the NBA draft.<\/p>\n

The sophomore guard is heading toMinnesota<\/a>, the move coming after the Brooklyn Nets<\/a> selected Evans at No. 33 overall in Wednesday night’s second round with a pick that will be shipped to the Timberwolves as part of a pre-draft trade.<\/p>\n

The 6-foot-6, 186-pound Evans had a seat in the green room through Tuesday’s first round but ultimately spent a difficult night without hearing his name called by league commissioner Adam Silver to join him on stage in New York.<\/p>\n

Evans wasn’t among the list of attending prospects released by the NBA for Round 2.<\/p>\n

Evans worked as an off-the-ball floor spacer with the ability to heat up from outside in a hurry while shooting 38% from behind the arc through two seasons. And he was considered a possible first-round prospect even before he elevated his game as a full-time starter in his sophomore season. The most pressing concern about him was the need to add strength to a slim frame to handle the physical play at the next level.<\/p>\n

While falling out of the first round was surely a disappointment, Evans won’t have to look far for inspiration when it comes to second-round picks who have gone on to NBA success. There’s a long line of stories, like that of Denver Nuggets<\/a> star and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic<\/a>, who arrived in the league as the No. 41 overall pick in 2014.<\/p>\n

Or, there’s New York Knicks<\/a> guard Jalen Brunson<\/a>, who earlier this month led the franchise to its first championship since 1973.<\/p>\n

His draft spot? Same as Evans, No. 33 overall in 2018.<\/p>\n

The wait until Wednesday night wasn’t as bad for players who weren’t expecting to be selected on the first night or understood patience, somethingMeleek Thomas<\/a>said he learned playing for John Calipari at Arkansas.<\/p>\n

“The most important lesson I learned from Coach Cal this year was: Your time is coming. Don’t worry about when. Don’t worry about how,” said Thomas, who was selected by Sacramento with the No. 34 pick and dealt to Cleveland.<\/p>\n

German guard Jack Kayil, whose rights were acquired by the Knicks with the No. 39 pick, not surprisingly named Brunson as the player he was hoping to learn from.<\/p>\n

“We play kind of in a similar position,” Kayil said. “We are also in kind of the same position of the draft. He was also second round. So I think I can learn a lot of stuff, how he started getting into the NBA, into the league, getting in touch with that.”<\/p>\n

The Knicks also acquired the rights toTyler Nickel<\/a>, the No. 47 pick from Vanderbilt, with their moves.<\/p>\n

Among the other well-known names taken in the second round were BYU’sRichie Saunders<\/a>, who was selected at No. 32 by Memphis; Purdue’s Braden Smith<\/a>, the NCAA’s career assists leader who was taken at No. 38 with a pick belonging to Indiana; Kentucky’s Otega Oweh<\/a>, with the No. 41 pick acquired by Oklahoma City; and Houston’sEmanuel Sharp<\/a>at No. 45 to Sacramento.<\/p>\n

The Wizards, who had the first overall pick in the draft, also had the 60th and final selection but dealt it to Milwaukee. The Bucks took Malique Lewis, a forward from Trinidad and Tobago who was playing most recently in Australia.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took a little longer than he had hoped, but Duke’sIsaiah Evansfound his landing spot in the NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[94342,7,691,130,62667,354,6,12,67],"class_list":["post-770195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-94342","tag-basketball","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-espn","tag-evans-isaiah","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116810817425852096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770195","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=770195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}