2026 NBA draft thread

[Smitty]

Excellent point which is why I'm so excited about this draft. I can rationalize just about any one of the guys in our range as a long term franchise changing piece. Say the Mavs somehow fall to 9 and end up with Mikel Brown Jr. That's the number one freshman guard prospect entering the season and he looked the part when he was briefly healthy. 

I understand there will be some misses and many of these guys won't come close to their high-end comps but a lot of the fun of watching a bad team is in projecting your young players. Even if it's not always truely rational.

A great example is Burries. He's a guy I wasn't high on two weeks ago but now he's solidly in the top-9 for me -- and no less than Stan Van Gundy thinks he's the next Devin Booker. He'd be an awesome complimentary piece next to Flagg.

I like Burries also. He's not a PG. Neither is Peterson or Wagler. Which is perfectly fine. I'm not in the camp that the Mavs must draft a PG with their top pick. Like I said earlier, I'd be okay with Brown, Wagler, Burries, Philon if that's where they go at 7/8.