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2026 NBA Draft grades, first-round pick-by-pick analysis: Wizards get A+ for selecting AJ Dybantsa No. 1

By Kevin O'Connor
June 23, 2026 11 Min Read
Comments Off on 2026 NBA Draft grades, first-round pick-by-pick analysis: Wizards get A+ for selecting AJ Dybantsa No. 1

We're handing out grades for every first-round pick of the 2026 NBA Draft:

The Wizards finally land their star. Dybantsa could become one of the NBA’s most unstoppable shot-creators. At 6-foot-9, he has a special blend of athletic tools the way he bends, shifts, and explodes with the ball in his hands. Dybantsa led the nation with 25.5 points per game while breaking Danny Ainge’s 48-year-old BYU freshman scoring record with a 43-point eruption. He gets to the rim at will, cooks in the midrange, draws fouls at a high rate, and displays point forward potential. After weeks of deliberating between Dybantsa and Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Dybantsa likely got the nod because he’s significantly taller and comes with less baggage.

In Washington, the pressure will be alleviated off AJ early in his career, now that he's teammates with two veterans in an All-Star-caliber big man in Anthony Davis and point guard Trae Young, who agreed to re-sign. The Wizards could even be quite competitive early on in Dybantsa’s career, especially if their existing young players get even better: Alex Sarr already looks like an effective two-way big, while guards and wings like Kyshawn George, Tre Johnson, Will Riley, and Bilal Coulibaly have all shown flashes at one time or another. But none of them project to be a superstar like Dybantsa, whose upside will be determined by whether he can become a knockdown 3-point shooter, as well as a more impactful defender to take full advantage of his physical tools. But the native of Brockton, Mass., has a tremendously high floor with his scoring skill alone that gives the Wizards a face of the franchise to build around and the ceiling to be a future MVP.

As much as Jazz owner and BYU alum/donor Ryan Smith might have wanted to keep Dybantsa in Utah, it could end up for the best to land Peterson, who is a buttery smooth scorer with a blend of fluid body control and positional size that gives him the ingredients to become an elite NBA player. At the high school level, he was a dynamic playmaker who used his burst to get into the teeth of defenses and generate buckets for himself and his teammates, while also showing off the kind of shot-making that draws comparisons to Hall of Famers. At Kansas, he thrived in an off-ball role, stroking jumpers out of movement actions and showing he can scale up or down depending on what a roster needs.

Peterson will join a talented young group featuring Ace Bailey, Cody Williams, Brice Sensabaugh, and Keyonte George, so his ability to shine with and without the ball will be highly valuable. The concern isn't his game. It's his body. He missed 11 of 35 games and pulled himself out of others due to cramping, which he claims are due to taking creatine. But it’s hard to imagine a better situation for Peterson. Even when he isn't scoring, he's a high-impact defender who causes chaos off-ball and has the 6-foot-11 wingspan to switch screens. Now he’ll have support around him with All-Stars Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the frontcourt, and the aforementioned blossoming young talents. The Jazz are actually pretty stacked on paper, especially if Walker Kessler re-signs and stays healthy next year. All this talent means that Peterson won’t have to play savior, and, like Bailey last year, can ease into his NBA routine as a rookie.

This choice was an easy one for the Grizzlies: Just take the best remaining of the top three prospects, and go home happy. And Grizzlies fans should be after landing the most polished player in the class. At 6-foot-8 and 253 pounds, Boozer scores from the post with both footwork and power, hits 40% of his 3s on high volume, and has enough handle to run offense as a point forward. He shifts between those modes based on what the defense gives him, and that adaptability led to a 35-win season at Duke and the Naismith Player of the Year. The worry is that he’s not a vertical athlete and the foundation of all that production — overpowering smaller defenders — gets diminished against NBA length. Plus, he’s a modern tweener on defense, lacking the explosiveness and size to protect the rim full-time and the lateral quickness to switch onto guards.

But Boozer is at his best defensively when paired with a true center, and he’s got one by his side in Zach Edey. With Cedric Coward, Jaylen Wells, and the other young guys in Memphis — plus whatever pieces get dealt for Ja Morant, who league sources say remains likely to get traded — the Grizzlies now have one of the league’s best young cores. With the bloodline of two-time All-Star Carlos Boozer, the Grizzlies are betting that skill, adaptability, and a track record of winning at every level all lead to superstardom.

Wilson is the most gifted athlete in the draft class. He's 6-foot-9 with springs for legs. When he's flying above the rim, finishing through contact, and chasing down every shot in his area code, he looks like a future franchise cornerstone. That’s exactly what the Bulls need in the frontcourt. After acquiring Nic Claxton from Brooklyn on Monday, the Bulls now have five players in Claxton, Wilson, Matas Buzelis, Josh Giddey, and Noa Essengue, who could in theory switch across positions. The Bulls are massive, athletic, and Wilson can be the centerpiece who becomes one of those defensive anchors while also adding even more upside offensively. For Wilson to reach his peak, though, he’ll need to figure out how to shoot jumpers. He has shot well in pre-draft workouts, per sources. Even without the jumper, though, he has star upside. Chicago has to be ecstatic he was on the board here with the fourth choice.

After weeks of rumblings that the Clippers would trade down, they stayed put and took a guard of the future in Wagler, who stands at 6-5 and can play with or without the ball and proved that last year in college. With only two seasons remaining on Darius Garland’s contract, he should not be a factor in their choice here. But Wagler’s height does give him a better chance to play alongside Garland.

At Illinois, Wagler quickly became the orchestrator of a high-powered Illinois offense with his high-IQ playmaking and crafty scoring. Then he scored 46 at Purdue against a top-ranked team in the country — the most points by any freshman in Big Ten history. Then he kept rolling, and led the team to an unexpected Final Four appearance. Next to Garland, there’d be less pressure on him to be the man right away, which could be beneficial for his development. To become an NBA star, Wagler needs to overcome a lack of traditional athleticism after logging zero dunks as a freshman. But the best case is that his feel for the game is enough for him to continue ascending.

The Nets took four guard-ish players in last year’s draft, but Egor Dёmin looks like the only true keeper and that hit shouldn’t necessarily stop them from taking an even better guard prospect here. When Brown is in the zone, he has an unstoppable pull-up jumper, an ambidextrous finishing ability, and the quick reads to rifle passes before the defense has time to react. He had a 45-point breakout performance in February after a back injury dogged him all freshman year and then ended his year later in the month. The absences muddy the evaluation and leave real questions about his consistency that may not get answered until he’s fully healthy. Given how different Dёmin’s skill set is at 6-8, Brown and Dёmin should perfectly complement each other as Brooklyn builds a foundation for the future.

Credit to the Kings front office for correctly calling the bluff by the Clippers and Nets, both of whom were rumored to threaten taking Acuff to force the Kings to move up in the draft. But Sacramento stuck with this spot and was rewarded with the guard the front office wanted all along in Acuff, a wiry scorer who can get a bucket from anywhere on the floor with a quick trigger, slippery handle, and a feel for manipulating defenses. After entering college with the reputation of a ball hog, he changed that and emerged as a skilled, low-turnover playmaker who sprayed the ball around the floor and put in significant effort moving off-ball. So while he is not the biggest guard or the most explosive athlete, he reads defenses like someone who's been in the league for a decade. He still needs to make dramatic improvements on defense, though, as he was one of the worst defenders in college basketball last season. Kings general manager Scott Perry and assistant general manager B.J. Armstrong were both born and raised in Detroit. So is Acuff. Perry coached Acuff’s father at Eastern Kentucky in the late 1990s. So there is a lot connecting Acuff to this organization, and here he’ll get a chance to become the savior of the franchise.

The Hawks re-signed CJ McCollum to a one-year, $21 million contract on Sunday, and now they find their successor to McCollum in Flemings. Flemings plays with surgical midrange touch, an explosive first step and the passing vision of a true point guard who can run an offense. But Flemings is also 183 pounds and midrange-heavy in a 3-point league, and he watched his efficiency crater against the stiffest competition late in the season. The question is whether his scoring package translates against NBA length and spacing, or whether opposing scouts figure him out the same way late-season defenses did. Still, he brings incredible effort and passion to the floor and will likely maximize whatever he's going to become. Every player on the Hawks’ roster can do a little bit of everything. So if there’s anywhere that Flemings could best reach his potential, it might be Atlanta.

Just a day after Dusty May was hired as Mavericks head coach, he gets to continue coaching a player in Johnson who helped May's Michigan team win an NCAA championship a few months ago. New Mavericks president Masai Ujiri has always loved drafting jumbo-sized forwards, which must’ve been part of the appeal in joining a franchise that’s headlined by Cooper Flagg. And that’s the logic here with Johnson. You know the guy on a championship team who never gets enough credit nationally? The one who sets the bone-crushing screen that springs the star, then immediately sprints to the rim for the lob, then turns around and blows up the other team's pick-and-roll on the other end all in one sequence? That's Morez Johnson. He transferred from Illinois to Michigan and became the connective tissue of the national champions as a 251-pound wrecking ball with surprisingly soft hands and the defensive IQ to guard 1 through 5 in a switch-heavy scheme. The catch is he's not quite big enough to be a true center and not yet proven enough as a shooter to guarantee he spaces the floor. But even without a jumper, Johnson has a long future ahead of him at the next level.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is gone, and now the Bucks have two lottery picks (including the the 13th pick from the Heat deal) to start building the post-Giannis foundation. Enter Burries, who arrived at Arizona as a top-10 recruit, started slow, and then erupted once conference play began, helping lead his team to the Final Four. He's a physical, versatile scorer who can beat you from all three levels, rebounds like a forward, and competes hard on defense. But he's a methodical creator rather than an explosive one, and his shooting history before Arizona gives scouts reason to wonder whether the efficiency is real or a blip.

It's been a brutal year. The Warriors lost Jimmy Butler to a torn ACL and Moses Moody to a torn patellar tendon, watched Steph Curry miss 27 games with knee issues, and finally gave up on Jonathan Kuminga. Golden State has been desperately searching for a young star to extend Curry's championship window, and bridge into whatever comes next. It will be harder to do that here after not getting lucky in the lottery. But maybe the Warriors will find a star: Lendeborg has a compelling story. Poor grades kept him off his high school varsity team. He went to a JUCO. Then UAB. Then he entered the draft, went through the combine, pulled his name back, and came back for one more year at Michigan and won a national championship. He just kept getting better every single time the competition got harder. He fills the stat sheet, he can play multiple positions, and he has a 7-foot-4 wingspan at 240 pounds with a genuine handle. He'll be 24 as a rookie, but that aspect could be appealing to Steve Kerr, who re-signed for a two-year deal. Yaxel comes in ready. Whether his story ends with NBA stardom is still up for debate.

The entire NBA breathed a sigh of relief when the Thunder didn’t move up in the lottery. But with this pick, courtesy of the Clippers for Paul George, they still add a player who could turn into a star, or at least a key contributor. One year ago, the Thunder drafted center Thomas Sorber, who missed the entire year for a torn ACL. But the selection hinted at OKC’s intentions to find a long-term big, possibly to replace Isaiah Hartenstein. Drafting Mara adds another option to the developmental pipeline. Mara stepped on UCLA’s campus as a lottery-projected center from Spain. Then he fell off draft boards during two forgettable seasons there before transferring to Michigan and becoming one of the best true 5s in the country on his way to winning the national championship. He reads the floor like a guard, finishes with both hands, and swats shots with elite timing. The complication is he doesn't shoot from outside, makes below 60% of his free throws, and opponents are going to attack him on the perimeter. The Thunder seemingly have a way of turning shaky shooters into reliable shooters though. If Mara figures out how to shoot, it’ll be a nightmare for the NBA. Even if he doesn’t, well, the Thunder are already a nightmare.

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