NBA Draft 2026: Winners and Losers After the NBA Finals with Draft Expert Krysten Peek

But now, Shams is reporting that Darryn Peterson — who might be the only other candidate for the number one pick — is also gonna meet with the Wizards, but is not going to meet with the Jazz. Obviously, he wants to be the number one pick. So is this just Darryn Peterson trying to force the hand to try to go number one? Where do we stand at the top of the draft with these guys?

You talked to Ace, where do these workouts and team meetings stand in terms of the number one pick?

Krysten Peek: I mean this chess game in the draft between the Wizards and the Jazz the last two years has been so fascinating. Remember last year, Ace Bailey, the only team that he worked out for was the Washington Wizards at pick number six. And Austin and Danny Ainge said, we don’t care. We’re gonna take you at five. And they took him at five. Now a year later, you have Will Dawkins with the number one pick. He’s holding his cards as close to his chest as possible. He’s not letting anybody know what he’s gonna do. 

Yes, AJ and Ace were in Washington on Friday, and then they flew to Salt Lake City on Saturday, I’m told, from Ace Dybantsa. And those are the only two workouts that they’re gonna do. I genuinely don’t think that the Wizards know what they’re gonna do yet. I think people within the organization, some of them favor Peterson, and then the other group, they favor AJ Dybantsaq.

I was at the BYU-Kansas game. And if you watch that one half of basketball, you walk away thinking Darryn Peterson was the best prospect on the court, regardless of anything else. So if you are the Washington Wizards, you’re kind of playing this game of like, Utah, who are we gonna take? Are we gonna take AJ? Are we gonna take Peterson? We’re not gonna tell you. 

Because this time last year, we knew a thousand percent that the Mavericks were going to be taking Cooper Flagg. This year, we don’t know. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. We don’t know if Utah, AJ is their guy. If they’re going to entertain trade talks with Washington at the top to move up to get that spot. 

But from everything that I’m told from Ace Dybantsa, he said both meetings went very, very well and he’s very confident, whichever team is picking first, it’s going to be his son, AJ Dybantsa.

Andy Katz: Yeah, the not working out for a team, ultimately that’s not gonna matter because the team’s gonna take who they’re gonna take. And the Ainge father-son, Danny and Austin, they don’t care, as we saw last year with Ace Bailey. Historically, Utah has had a hard time with free agency, so they have to work through the draft.

Krysten, we’re obviously coming off the NBA Finals, and Jalen Brunson had a historic performance with 45 points in game five. So the natural question coming off of that are the the second round finds. 

Who jumps out at you as a potential game-changer years from now that’s going to go in that second round?

Krysten: Let me start by saying that Jalen Brunson and what he did for the Knicks bodes very well for players like Darius Acuff, Ebuka Okorie and Christian Anderson in this heavy, heavy lead guard, point guard draft. 

But if we’re looking at the second round, and if you wanna stay with that small guard comparison, I mean, Nick Boyd. He was first at San Diego State and then at Wisconsin. He was just okay in the scrimmages at the Combine, but he’s a key name as the second round thins out. 

He’s a name I’m hearing from a lot of teams. He’s very tough. We saw it first. He told me he got that toughness first at San Diego State, and that carried over to Wisconsin, playing with another ball dominant guard, and playing in the Big Ten. I was at the game where they won in overtime against Illinois. He went head to head with Keaton Wagler and he was very, very tough defensively. So Nick Boyd is one of them. 

Richie Saunders, he tore his ACL. He’s someone that I know a lot of teams like. He’s going to have to sit out a year. Sharpshooter. Again, I go back to that BYU game. Seth, you tweeted this and I completely agree: In the second half, Richie Saunders was the best prospect on the court. He almost singlehandedly brought BYU back into that Kansas game. So he’s another hot name in the second round.

And then we’ve got another Serbian big, Pavle Bačko. At the U18s last year in Europe — I mean, if you go back and watch his film, he’s someone that’s slowly creeping up in that second round, in the early thirties. He could be that next big Serbian guy to come over and really surprise people in the NBA.

Seth: I wanna have this conversation, especially with Krysten, because like you, I’m talking to a lot of NBA scouts this week, preparing for my annual, internationally-popular Finch column of anonymous NBA scouts. And this whole thing about Jalen Brunson is coming up, right? Everyone is saying everyone overlooked Jalen Brunson because he was so small. Both coming out of the draft — he was picked thirty-third — and then the Mavericks trading him to the Knicks. 

I think it’s very possible here to learn the wrong lesson with regards to Jalen Brunson. The lesson everyone tries: Well, don’t pass on someone because they’re small. I think that’s a very dangerous lesson to learn. Jalen Brunson is a frickin’ unicorn. There’s a much, much longer list of guys who were, in fact, too small to play in the NBA. Who were All-American, National Player of the Year caliber players in college. There are so many guys. It’s very hard to find six foot, scoring point guards in the NBA who can lead you to an NBA championship. 

Do you think teams are in danger of learning the wrong lesson here with regards to Jalen Brunson?

Krysten: Well, yeah. You don’t want to get trigger-happy, especially in this draft. I talked to a couple of the New York Knicks scouts who are here in Colorado Springs. Obviously they’re ecstatic. One of them watched the championship and he won a ring, watching it silently on the plane. I was just like, what a way to know that your organization won a championship: On his way to U17 trials here in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center.

When I pose the question of you know, what do you think this does for the three players I just said: Darius Acuff, Ebuka Okorie, and Christian Anderson, he said, well, Jalen Brunson’s one of one. First of all, people know that and teams know that. So this isn’t — I don’t think teams are gonna get as trigger-happy. But in the top ten, I think teams are going to be hunting and hoping Darius Acuff is just a slight sliver of what Jalen Brunson has done for the New York Knicks.

Andy: Well, I’ll tell you another name that I think could emerge out of this draft because he’s high character and tough: Kingston Flemings. Looking back at past drafts, I just think the winning piece is so important. And that’s why — even though they were weaker drafts — I just was never a fan of when Ben Simmons went one and Markelle Fultz went one.

They couldn’t even get to the NCAA tournament at LSU, at Washington. That was a red flag for me. I’m not picking, but to me, winning matters. And that’s why, even small — someone like Braden Smith. He’s gonna be on a roster because he’s a winner. All those Nova Knicks: they were winners. 

To me, the winning piece matters. What say you, Krysten?

Krysten: Well, Kingston is one of the buzziest names right now. I mean, coming out of the Combine, it was Mikel Brown Jr. — what he did and how healthy he looked in his pro day. He interviewed very well. He was great during agility and also the shooting drill. But the closer we get, it’s Kingston Flemings’ name in terms of his two-way guard play. I think he’s gonna end up being the best two-way guard in this draft. 

The fact that he came from a winning program like Houston and thrived under Kelvin Sampson. It’s not easy. And NBA teams know this: it’s not easy to play for someone like Kelvin Sampson. So he’s a name that I’m hearing more and more at five to the Clippers if they keep the pick. I also think the Clippers are entertaining every and any sort of trade. 

You hear a lot with the Kings, their guy is Darius Acuff. They could possibly move up to five to try to secure Darius Acuff. But Kingston Flemings and Mikel Brown Jr. — I’m hearing more and more their names at number five versus what we heard for so long during this season with Keaton Wagler.

Keaton Wagler is someone that — when I say fall, he’s not, I don’t think, falling outside the top ten. But a lot of teams are getting a little stage fright knowing — everybody loved  Kasparas Jakučionis coming out last year from Illinois because they’re like, look how well he plays in spacing, Illinois plays very well in spacing. Jakučionis was okay for Miami this year, but it didn’t necessarily translate to the level that teams want to see translate, especially with a one-and-done guard. 

So when you look at Kingston Flemings and his body of work, it’s the reason why he and Mikel Brown are two players that are rising. And a player like Keaton Wagler is kind of taking that eight, nine, ten range.

Seth: The thing that’s stuck out to me about Kingston Flemings is how good he was late in the games. When you got to those last couple of minutes — and Houston, because of their style, plays in close games — it’s like everybody on that team understood who the dude was. They had some really good players on that team. 

I’m a big believer, by the way, in Chris Cenac Jr. as a guy who could end up being a great player, because he has shown the ability to make that three-point shot. He didn’t do it maybe consistently and efficiently, but at his size, with his skill set and his rebounding and his switchability on defense, that’s a guy to me. I just want to lay out that marker right now because so many of my draft takes suck. And I’m like one of the few people out there who go back and retweet my bad draft takes. 

Krysten, we asked you to give us a list of guys whose stocks were cooling a little bit. Again, not plummeting. You mentioned Keaton Wagler, but also Jayden Quaintance and Koa Peat. I’d like to talk about those guys. Quaintance, obviously, with the knee. Koa Peat had such an incredible year and so the idea that people are going to be cold on him based on his poor shooting performance at the Combine — it’s certainly a legit concern but he was one of the most dominant players in college basketball, and only a freshman. 

Why are the draft stocks of Keaton Wagler, Jayden Quaintance and Koa Peat, sinking just a little bit?

Krysten: Well, with Jayden Quaintance and his knee injury, I’m told the medical is coming back not as positive as people want. It’s looking like he’s gonna have to sit out another year and rehab and really grow into it. Mind you, he’s still one of the youngest players in this draft. This is a player who reclassed up. He spent two years at the college level. He had the ACL injury, he tried to come back from it to play at Kentucky. He only played, I don’t know, it was a handful of games, and then decided to sit it out.

At the Combine, he didn’t go through agility testing because of this nagging knee problem, only went through shooting. And when the medicals came back, it’s looking like it’s not as great as people thought. So for someone with such high potential that we thought might be in that fifteen to nineteen range, it looks like he’s gonna fall to the twenties. 

With Koa Peat and his shooting — This is a player who’s played bully ball. He’s been bigger than everybody else. Even playing up two divisions when he was 15 years old at the 17U level, on the 3SSB for Compton Magic, he was still dominating with physical presence. He comes from a family of football players. That’s all going to be a factor in terms of what team is gonna draft him. 

I don’t think that there’s gonna be any problem with Clutch, with Rich Paul and his agent, Lucas Newton trying to find a home for him in the twenties. I think they’re gonna be able to do it. It’s just gonna be where? Where is he gonna fall? He was part of that U19 team that won a gold medal in Luzon, Switzerland a year ago. He’s very, very talented, but the three-point jumper and his shooting mechanics and how much it changed from the end of the season at Arizona to the Draft Combine is very, very concerning. And that’s gonna be a mental hurdle. That any team is going to have to tackle.

Andy: Great point. I just talked to Tommy Lloyd about that, the head coach at Arizona. I wonder, if Koa Peat had not gone out for 30 and we were all there at that game in game one, would all of this happen? Going into the season, so much of the freshman talk was more about Brayden Burries, who is in the draft as well. And that’s why I was gonna ask you about him. 

It’s weird, like no real negatives, but he’s just not someone who’s being discussed a lot, yet he’s going to get a nice lottery position. But maybe that’s because of Koa Peat — in or out, his name is more of a lightning rod and there’s a lot of discussion on him. And yet here’s Brayden Burries, who’s going to go higher and has a little bit more comfort in selecting him in this draft.

Could you explain Brayden Burries as a prospect? What’s the reason for his lack of media attention?

Krysten: Yeah, Brayden Burries, I mean, he’s a player.  I want to say, I was at that BYU game where he was the turning point: He single handedly charged a comeback and led all players in points with 29. I think he had like four or five assists, three steals. He was unbelievable. That was the turning point in their season. And then he continued that into league play, playing alongside Jaden Bradley, who was the Big 12 Player of the Year. Teams can see that he can play both on and off the ball.

He’s a little bit older than a lot of the one-and-done freshmen. I think he’s turning 21 in September. So that’s another factor. But Clutch is being very strategic as to where they want him. He’s only worked out for Dallas, Atlanta. I think he’s gonna work out for Golden State this week and also the Clippers at five. There’s been reports that say they really want him in Dallas alongside Cooper Flagg to be that complimentary piece.

So he’s someone I can’t see falling outside the lottery. It’s the fact that he can both play on and off the ball and what he does on both sides of the ball, being effective on the wing and in shot creation offensively, but also defending off the PNR and the drop coverage off the switch.