From AJ Dybantsa to Koa Peat, rewind through the entire first round of the 2026 NBA Draft at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2013<\/strong> Surprises were minimal as the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft<\/a> unfolded Tuesday at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n BYU\u2019s AJ Dybantsa went No. 1<\/a> to the Washington Wizards, followed by Kansas\u2019 Darryn Peterson at No. 2<\/a> to the Utah Jazz, Duke\u2019s Cameron Boozer at No. 3<\/a> to the Memphis Grizzlies, North Carolina\u2019s Caleb Wilson at No. 4 to the Chicago Bulls and Illinois\u2019 Keaton Wagler at No. 5 to the Los Angeles Clippers.<\/p>\n Nine of the first 10 picks in the 2026 NBA Draft were college freshmen, tying the record for the most freshmen in the top 10, set in 2017 and 2025. The first 20 selections all played college basketball, marking the first time since 1994 that the first 20 picks came from college.<\/p>\n Here are takeaways from the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft:<\/p>\n Seven teams had two first-round picks<\/p>\n Counting Milwaukee, which reportedly acquired the No. 13 overall pick from Miami in the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade<\/a>, seven teams had two picks in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft Tuesday: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Memphis, Milwaukee and Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what those teams did with their picks:<\/p>\n Hawks:<\/strong><\/a> The Hawks made the playoffs last season (remember, they had a 2-1 first-round series lead against the champion New York Knicks) and added guard Kingston Flemings from Houston at No. 8 and St. John\u2019s forward Zuby Ejiofor at No. 23.<\/p>\n Hornets:<\/strong> <\/a>The Hornets went from 19 victories in 2024-25 to 44 victories in 2025-26 and want to take another jump next season. With the final lottery pick, they took Washington big man Hannes Steinbach at No. 14, and with the 18th pick, the Hornets drafted Texas Tech guard Christian Anderson.<\/p>\n Bulls:<\/strong> <\/a>Another team with a new coach (Tiago Splitter) and a new front-office leader (executive vice president of basketball operations Bryson Graham), the Bulls wanted North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson and took him No. 4. They also selected Texas guard-forward Dailyn Swain at No. 15.<\/p>\n Mavericks:<\/strong> <\/a>Amid a rebuild with a new president (Masai Ujiri), new general manager (Mike Schmitz) and new coach (Dusty May), the Mavericks added Michigan big man Morez Johnson Jr., who played for May, at No. 9, and in a trade with New York, Dallas reportedly acquired Spain\u2019s Sergio De Larrea to go alongside 2025-26 Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg.<\/p>\n Grizzlies:<\/strong> <\/a>Memphis is trying to rediscover winning ways and moved in the right direction by taking Duke forward Cameron Boozer at No. 3. In a reported trade, Memphis sent the No. 17 pick it got from Oklahoma City to Detroit and acquired Mexico\u2019s Karim Lopez at No. 21.<\/p>\n Bucks:<\/strong> <\/a>Moving on from the Antetokounmpo era, the Bucks added Miami\u2019s pick to their first-round haul, taking Arizona guard Brayden Burries 10th, and with the pick from Miami, the Bucks will acquire Tennessee forward Nate Ament 13th.<\/p>\n Thunder:<\/strong> <\/a>A front office with an eye for talent and fit on and off the court, the Thunder selected Michigan\u2019s 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara 12th, and in a reported trade with Memphis, they acquired No. 16 pick Bennett Stirtz, a guard from Iowa.<\/p>\n It also means seven teams did not have a first-round pick. They are: Houston, Indiana, Miami, New Orleans, Orlando, Phoenix and Portland.<\/p>\n Michigan has three go in the top 12<\/p>\n Michigan, which won the 2026 NCAA championship, had three players selected in the top 12: Morez Johnson Jr. at No. 9, Yaxel Lendeborg at No. 11 and Aday Mara at No. 12. It marks the first time since Florida in 2007 that three non-freshmen from the same school were lottery picks.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so happy for those guys,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe talked about it during the season. We got our ultimate goal of winning the national championship and we just got drafted together, all lottery picks. I\u2019m proud of my brothers, and I\u2019m very excited to see what our future has for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson going to Dallas at No. 9 also reunites him with his coach at Michigan, Dusty May, who was just named coach of the Mavericks.<\/p>\n \u201cI was insanely shocked when I saw Dusty was going to be coach of the Mavs,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI did not see it coming at all. And now for him to be my coach again, I\u2019m excited. I\u2019m excited. I can\u2019t wait to get there and go to work with him again and ultimately win again.\u201d<\/p>\n Big night for Big 12<\/p>\n Nine players from the Big 12 were selected in the first round, including four in the top 10. The nine first rounders set a Big 12 record for most first rounders in a single draft, surpassing the seven picked in the first round of the 2010 draft.<\/p>\n The picks: Dybantsa; Peterson; Houston\u2019s Kingston Flemings; Arizona\u2019s Brayden Burries; Texas Tech\u2019s Christian Anderson Jr.; Baylor\u2019s Cameron Carr; Houston\u2019s Chris Cenac Jr.; Iowa State\u2019s Joshua Jefferson; and Arizona\u2019s Koa Peat.<\/p>\n Now, the Big 12 looks different today than it did five years ago with six more teams now than in 2021. Still, it was an impressive showing from the Big 12.<\/p>\n Big Ten: Six players<\/p>\n SEC: Five players<\/p>\n ACC: Four players<\/p>\n Draft lottery reform kicks in next season<\/p>\n This was the last year \u2013 at least through the 2029 NBA Draft \u2013 that the teams with the worst records had the best odds at winning the No. 1 pick in the draft lottery.<\/p>\n The NBA\u2019s Board of Governors in May approved a new draft lottery system that \u201cis designed to eliminate incentives for teams to prioritize draft position over winning.\u201d<\/p>\n Key parts of the new system:<\/p>\n * * *\u00a0<\/p>\n Jeff Zillgitt has covered the NBA since 2008. You can email him at\u00a0jzillgitt@nba.com<\/a>, find\u00a0his archive here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0follow him on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From AJ Dybantsa to Koa Peat, rewind through the entire first round of the 2026 NBA Draft at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":889184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[86176,45913,47473,51,2629,50,52],"class_list":["post-889183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-college-players","tag-first-round","tag-freshmen","tag-headlines","tag-nba-draft","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116804459544722876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n