The 2026 NBA Draft — Night 1 Reaction
Last night saw Round 1 of the 2026 NBA Draft take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
This year’s Draft class is considered a strong one, with AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and Caleb Wilson widely expected to be the top four picks in the Draft going into last night’s ceremony.
Top Four Picks as Expected
And so it came to pass — as expected, the Washington Wizards selected forward AJ Dybantsa from Brigham Young University with the #1 pick. On the face of it, the Wizards are now in a strong position going into the 2026/27 season, even before free agency opens — Trae Young has rehabbed the multiple injury issues that mostly kept him off the court for the Wizards last season following the trade from the Atlanta Hawks, and he has also reportedly signed a four-year contract extension with the Wizards. If Anthony Davis can now overcome his injury issues, he, Young and Dybantsa would head up what should be a good roster for the Wizards next season that also contains young talent like Alex Sarr and Bilal Coulibaly.
At #2, the Utah Jazz then selected guard Darryn Peterson from the University of Kansas. For me, the Jazz had a very front court-heavy roster last season, and so, it made sense for them to add to a backcourt that already features Isaiah Collier and Keyonte George. Peterson showed during both his high school and college careers that he’s a very good scorer, both in the midrange and from beyond the arc, and it’s never a bad thing to add someone who can find the basket from those areas of the court in today’s NBA. I do however worry where the Jazz’s facilitation will come from next season. On this point then, while the Jazz have used their draft position to get themselves a very good scorer, they will need to use free agency to sign someone who will create the scoring opportunities for Peterson et al.
At #3, the Memphis Grizzlies selected forward Cameron Boozer from Duke. The son of former Jazz, Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers forward Carlos, Cam Boozer came into the Draft having won the ACC Player of the Year, ACC Rookie of the Year and ACC Tournament MVP awards while also being named AP National Player of the Year. In every sense, a real blue-chip prospect then, particularly when you also consider his very impressive stat numbers as a freshman at Duke too. By all accounts, the Grizzlies are adding a fantastic player to what is a good roster. Whether that roster will stay together given the trade rumours that continue to swirl around Ja Morant is another matter though. Either way, the Grizzlies have got themselves a very good player in Cam Boozer that adds to the team’s existing core of good young players as the organisation tries to build a roster that could be competitive for the next decade-plus. Frankly, as a Bulls fan, I would have loved it if Boozer had fallen to the #4 spot…
On this, having been very busy since the end of the regular season bringing in Bryson Graham, Stephen Mervis and Acie Law IV as the organisation’s new executive vice president of basketball operations, senior vice president of basketball operations and vice president of player personnel respectively before then signing Tiago Splitter as the team’s new head coach earlier this month, the Chicago Bulls took who of the consensus top four picks was expected to fall to #4; forward Caleb Wilson from North Carolina. Wilson is a good player who comes out of North Carolina having put up good numbers last season — 19.8 PPG and 9.4 RPG. As a Bulls fan, I do worry though that the Bulls are stocking up on very similar players — tall, athletic forwards — having drafted Matas Buzelis and Noa Essengue the past two years though. In my opinion at least, the team needs a greater variety of players on the roster so we can compete against the different looks opposition will give us.
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On this, when considering the Bulls’ 2026 Draft, the important thing to note was that the Bulls also needed to pick well at #15 given having two draft picks in the top half of Round 1 should help to kickstart the rebuild the Bulls apparently need. Taking advantage of that to add some much-needed depth and quality to what is a young roster was key. This is particularly true given the Bulls now have a head coach who took over as interim head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers at short notice last season following the allegations against Chauncey Billups and helped guide what was a Trail Blazers roster full of young talent to the #7 seed in a highly-competitive Western Conference and playoffs where they lost to the San Antonio Spurs in five games in the first round.
And the Bulls did arguably do this by drafting forward Dailyn Swain from the University of Texas with the fifteenth pick in last night’s Draft. Swain reminds me a lot of that period the Bulls went through when they kept drafting 6’’7’ wings — Patrick Williams, Dalen Terry, Julian Phillips, etc — which a good case can be made to say didn’t work out well for the Bulls, but Swain is someone who has kept on getting better year-on-year throughout his high school and college career, so let’s give him a chance. Personally, even following the reported acquisition of Nic Claxton as part of Julius Randle’s trade to the Brooklyn Nets, I think the Bulls still need to build more of a presence in the paint, so I may have looked to see if someone like Chris Cenac Jr — who went to the Boston Celtics with the 27th pick — had the potential to be become a Ryan Kalkbrenner-like player, but Graham, Mervis and Law clearly have more experience and know-how than I do, so I will defer to their better judgement.
The Other Top 10 Picks
Elsewhere in the top ten picks, Keaton Wagler of Illinois went to the LA Clippers at #5, Mikel Brown Jr was picked by the Nets at #6, Kingston Flemings of Houston went to the Atlanta Hawks at #8, Morez Johnson Jr of Michigan was selected by the Dallas Mavericks at #9 and Braydon Burries of Arizona was the #10 pick by the Milwaukee Bucks. It is also worth noting that the Bucks also received the Heat’s pick at #13 — Nate Ament of Tennessee — as part of the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade that happened on the eve of the Draft. For me though, the Sacramento Kings have done very well to draft Darius Acuff Jr from the University of Arkansas with the #7 pick. Acuff comes from a program led by John Calipari at Arkansas that has a history of producing fantastic offensive guards — like Jamal Murray, for example — but Acuff is also a very good playmaker, which is what the Kings need. Given Acuff already has a pretty polished game, and has shown he can both score and facilitate, I would not be surprised if he is in the running to be named Rookie of the Year at the end of the 2026/27 season.
Other Draft Highlights
Of note in the rest of Round 1, the Oklahoma City Thunder drafted Spanish center Aday Mara from the University of Michigan at #12. The 7’’3’ Mara is a good fit for the Thunder having been named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, so should be able to fit well with OKC’s whole-team defence and give them added rim protection at a time when the Thunder may be looking to decline Isaiah Hartenstein’s $28.5m team option in order to avoid second apron tax penalties.
Elsewhere, defeated NBA Finalists the San Antonio Spurs arguably took a punt on center Jayden Quaintance from the University of Kentucky with the twentieth pick. Quaintance has had an injury-plagued 18 months having torn his ACL in February 2025 before missing more action upon his return due to lingering issues with his right knee. He is still only 18 years old though, and is going into a Spurs system that is famous for drafting good centers and which has drafted very well in the last three years having selected Rookie of the Year winners Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper, who was one of the Spurs’ best players in the NBA Finals defeat to the New York Knicks. If the Spurs can help Quaintance to fully rehab that right knee then, they could have found Wemby’s partner in the paint for the next 10–15 seasons.
At pick #21, the Detroit Pistons, in a pick that will now go to the Memphis Grizzlies, selected the highly-touted Mexican forward Karim López, who played for the New Zealand Breakers in the National Basketball League last season. The 19-year-old López received many plaudits for his play against older, more experienced guys in the NBL in the run-up to the Draft, and players with NBL experience — like LaMelo Ball, for example- have done very well after transferring to the NBA in recent years. The Grizzlies have done well in the 2026 Draft thus far then, as López adds further to what is already a very good group of young players at the Grizzlies, and so, it may be that López has found a good home in the FedEx Forum.
Finally, in terms of Round 1 highlights, the Philadelphia 76ers selected guard Labaron Philon Jr from the University of Alabama. In many ways, Philon reminds me a lot of VJ Edgecombe in terms of his ability and willingness to drive to the basket and his fast pace of play. Given how well Edgecombe fitted into the 76ers last season and Philon’s ability to play both guard positions, it may be then that Philon can fit seamlessly into the 76ers’ style of play and help to give the 76ers a one-two punch in the backcourt off the bench.
For a full list of last night’s Draft picks, you can check out the NBA Draft section on the NBA website.
That is not the end of the 2026 NBA Draft though, as Night 2 and Round 2 will conclude proceedings tonight. Of note, multiple teams — including the Bulls, Knicks and Nets — have two picks on Night 2, so there is every chance that there will be some trades including those Draft picks in the lead-up to tonight’s action.
Brett Walker is a sports writer who hosts The BCS Podcast, and can be found on Twitter @BrettChatsSport. He can also be found on Bluesky.
N.B. This article was amended on 25 June to correct Caleb Wilson’s rebounding average at the University of North Carolina.
