AJ Dybantsa is calling it already: The NBA draft class of 2026, in his mind, is one of the best in league history.
And nobody even has been drafted yet.
If there’s one characteristic the players expected to be at the top of next month’s draft share, it’s confidence. They know they’re good, and they don’t mind telling you they’re good. And for the teams now in position to get those top players — the Washington Wizards at No. 1, Utah Jazz at No. 2, Memphis Grizzlies at No. 3 and Chicago Bulls at No. 4 — the next few weeks will be teeming with promise.
“Since I’m in this draft class, I’m going to say we’re one of the best draft classes,” said Dybantsa, who led Division I in scoring this past season at BYU. “We’ll see how that pans out and how our careers pan out, but if you ask me right now, I think we’re one of the best draft classes.”
Fair enough.
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 June 23 will be Dybantsa, Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, Duke’s Cameron Boozer and North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson.
They’re 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’s draft lottery feel perhaps a bit more consequential than others.
“I feel like it can be the best ever,” Wilson said when asked how good the 2026 class can be. “We have a deep draft and I feel like everybody wants to play hard and prove themselves. And it’s just a matter of time before we can do that.”
The Indiana Pacers were devastated not to get a pick after having the league’s second-worst record this season. The Pacers — who made the NBA Finals a year ago — surrendered the No. 5 pick to the Los Angeles Clippers to help pay off this season’s trade for center Ivica Zubac, who surely will help when Tyrese Haliburton returns from his torn Achilles.
But to miss out on grabbing some of the talent available this year, put simply, that hurt Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard.
“Today, it stings,” Pritchard said Sunday. “But wait ‘til next season. Let’s give this group an opportunity to go compete for a championship because they’ve proven they can do it.”
Wizards President Michael Winger likes to get into the math of things, and he knows a 14% chance isn’t exactly great. But it was as good as anyone else in the lottery, and in the end it was good enough to get Washington the No. 1 pick.
But why?
“I don’t have a compelling answer for that. I think that ultimately it was just our time. I think it was time to get that pick,” Winger said. “Whether it’s because there’s a special athlete at the top of the draft that we want or organizationally we’re ready for a player like that, whatever the case may be … the basketball gods decided that this was our year.”
The Wizards were the big winner. They weren’t the only winner.
The Oklahoma City Thunder get a lottery pick in this draft because of the years and years and years that general manager Sam Presti spent collecting both good players and draft capital. That means the reigning champions — maybe back-to-back champions by draft time — will get even better.
The Clippers got a top-five pick, the Grizzlies got No. 3, the Bulls rebuild will see them land an extremely good player and the Jazz — who were fined $500,000 this year for sitting players in the fourth quarter of games — are sitting at No. 2.
“Agree to disagree,” 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.
Guard Keyonte George represented the Jazz at Sunday’s lottery. He said they are keeping the receipts — his way of saying, yes, the Jazz have taken note of all the tanking talk that dogged them this season.
“We’re going to make sure we go at our own pace, understand we’re a new group and we’re on our journey to something special,” George said. “But, yeah, as a group, we’ll have a chip on our shoulder for sure.”
There’s a lot of basketball left to be played this season. The New York Knicks are in the NBA’s final four already, awaiting the Cleveland Cavaliers or Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals. The Thunder can get back to the Western Conference finals Monday, and if they get there, they’ll be waiting for either the San Antonio Spurs or Minnesota Timberwolves.
But draft talk is picking up speed. And given how much talent is out there, that’s understandable.
“A lot of people are saying we’re the best class in the last 10 years,” Peterson said. “So we’re going to try our best to be that.”
