2026 NBA Draft Preview: Washington's Choice, AJ Dybantsa, and the Deepest Class in Years

Published June 22, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

The 2026 NBA Draft runs Tuesday and Wednesday, June 23 and 24, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Round 1 goes Tuesday night. Round 2 picks up Wednesday. The Washington Wizards pick first. They won the lottery on May 10 over Indiana and Brooklyn, all three at 14 percent odds, and scouts have been calling this one of the three or four deepest draft classes in recent memory. The name at the top of most boards is AJ Dybantsa, a 6-foot-9 wing out of BYU who is the heavy betting favorite at -450 on FanDuel. But the choice is not settled, and that is part of what makes Tuesday interesting.

This is also the last draft run under the current ping-pong ball lottery system. Starting in 2027, new anti-tanking format rules take effect. If you have followed the lottery era (ping-pong balls, weighted odds, all of it) this is its final night.

Washington’s choice: Dybantsa or Peterson?

The Wizards finished 16-66, which put them in the lottery with the third-best odds. They lost 26 of their final 27 games. Their franchise needs a lot, which is to say the first pick is valuable and the stakes of getting this right are real in a way they aren’t for a team closer to contention.

The frontrunner is AJ Dybantsa. He is 6 feet 9 inches, 217 pounds, with a 7-foot-half-inch wingspan and an 8-foot-10-inch standing reach measured at the combine. His maximum vertical at the combine was the highest recorded this year. He led the entire country in scoring as a BYU freshman, averaging 25.5 points per game, and led the nation in total points (894) and field goals made (308). His shooting splits (51.0 percent from the field, 33.1 from three, 77.4 from the line) are not unusual for a big man with a wing game, but they tell you he is a creator first and a catcher second.

He won the Julius Erving Award as the best small forward in college basketball. He was a consensus first-team All-American, first-team All-Big 12, and the Big 12 Freshman and Newcomer of the Year. He did not work out for any team before the draft, which is the clearest possible signal that he and his camp believe the Wizards are taking him first regardless of what the pre-draft interviews and measurements show.

Scouts compare him to Jaylen Brown for the combination of athleticism and midrange creation, DeMar DeRozan for the pull-up game and foul-drawing at his size, and a bigger Tracy McGrady for the upside ceiling. That last comparison is meaningful: McGrady is one of the more gifted athletes the game has ever produced, and if Dybantsa’s three-point shooting matures, the offensive case is truly unusual.

The argument for Darryn Peterson at one is that the debate is genuinely close. Peterson is a different kind of prospect, a more natural playmaker who is more comfortable creating for others off the dribble, and there is a real philosophical split among evaluators about whether wing creation or guard creation is more replicable at the next level. Washington has guards. They might need the wing more.

The betting line is not subtle. Dybantsa at -450 means sportsbooks believe there is roughly an 82 percent chance he goes first. Most mock drafts agree. The intense debate has mostly been settled by the market.

Cameron Boozer and the rest of the top five

Whoever does not go to Washington at one will almost certainly be gone by three. Cameron Boozer had one of the better one-and-done seasons in recent college basketball history. Son of Carlos Boozer, 6-foot-9, a complete two-way forward who was the most NBA-ready prospect in the class physically from day one of the season. He is not the athlete Dybantsa is, but the skill set is ready now in a way that some of the higher-ceiling prospects are not.

The top five beyond Peterson and Boozer include several prospects the evaluator community has genuine disagreement about:

• Nate Ament has been a consistent 5-to-7 pick across major mock drafts, with the Nets linked to him at pick six. The mystery, per ClutchPoints, is that scouts genuinely cannot agree on what position he is at the next level or how high his upside actually goes.
• Keaton Wagler has slid on some boards as concerns about his three-point shot from the combine leaked out, though his size and feel remain legitimate.
• The rest of the first round is deep by the standards of recent classes, which is why the draft overall has attracted this level of attention.

How this class compares historically

ESPN’s Jeremy Woo ranked Dylan Harper (the 2025 number-two pick) behind Dybantsa, Peterson, AND Boozer in a combined class exercise. For context, Harper was seen as one of the stronger non-Flagg prospects in recent memory entering last year’s draft. Cooper Flagg, who went first overall in 2025 to Dallas, would not be the first pick in this class, per the same exercise.

NBC Sports put the class among the top four or five in the past two decades, with the caveat that depth in the back half of the first round remains uncertain until players actually get NBA reps.

The last class that attracted this level of comparison to elite historical drafts was 2020 (Anthony Edwards, James Wiseman, LaMelo Ball) and before that 2019 (Zion Williamson, Ja Morant). Both had franchise-altering picks in the top three. This class appears to have three of them. That is not common.

What contending teams are trying to do

For teams picking outside the top three, the draft becomes a different exercise: value selection versus win-now asset acquisition. Several teams in the 6-to-13 range have already been discussed as trade-down candidates if a team behind them wants to move up for a specific player.

The other variable is the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade situation. The Miami Heat hold the 13th pick and have reportedly included it in their trade package offer to Milwaukee. If the Heat move that pick before Tuesday, the slot flips to a Bucks team that now has to decide what to do with a mid-first and a rebuilt timeline.

Free agency opens June 30. For a lot of teams, Tuesday night is the first domino in a summer that could reshape the league by August.

Related reading

• 2026 NBA Draft Lottery recap
• Washington Wizards franchise history
• Cooper Flagg
• Miami Heat franchise history

Gear

Draft night card boxes move. If you are in the AJ Dybantsa market, Panini will have Dybantsa rookies in product by August at the latest. JD Sports has Nike sneakers across the roster. The draft suits get a lot of attention, but the sneakers at the podium tell the same story.

Shop NBA Draft card boxes on Amazon →

Shop basketball sneakers at JD Sports →

Sources

Dybantsa’s college stats (25.5 ppg, 6.8 reb, 3.7 ast, 1.1 stl, 51.0/33.1/77.4 splits, 35 games) from Yahoo Sports Draft profile and Bleacher Report combine breakdown. Combine measurements (6’8.5”, 217 lbs, 7’0.5” wingspan, 8’10” standing reach, maximum vertical) from Bleacher Report. Betting odds (Dybantsa -450, FanDuel) from PrizePicks/Playbook and CBS Sports coverage. The “did not work out for any team” detail from ClutchPoints reporting. Cameron Boozer’s “one of the best one-and-done seasons in CBB history” characterization from CBS Sports top-ten breakdown. The combined class ranking (Harper behind Dybantsa, Peterson, and Boozer; Flagg not first in this class) from ESPN’s Jeremy Woo class comparison piece. Draft schedule (Round 1 Tuesday June 23, Round 2 Wednesday June 24, Barclays Center) from NBC Sports and NBA.com. Nate Ament-Nets link from CBS Sports mock draft 4.0.