2026 NBA draft thread

[Winter]

"deleted"

[Winter]

This is an article on SI.com about the PYA (productive young athlete) query which is data metrics to help determine longivity in NBA draft picks. Rather than explain it, you can read the article here. Fun read.

Subtitle: "78% of college basketball players who meet four specific criteria play five or more years in the NBA or are currently in the league. Who qualified this past season?"

https://www.si.com/nba/draft/newsfeed/20...lete-query

[Scott41theMavs]

This is an article on SI.com about the PYA (productive young athlete) query which is data metrics to help determine longivity in NBA draft picks. Rather than explain it, you can read the article here. Fun read.

Subtitle: "78% of college basketball players who meet four specific criteria play five or more years in the NBA or are currently in the league. Who qualified this past season?"

https://www.si.com/nba/draft/newsfeed/20...lete-query

So, looking at that, of the 11 players they say qualify for their criteria in this draft, 4 of course are the big 4. The others of the "big 9" who made it were Flemings, Burries and Acuff (i.e. no Brown or Wagler, go figure. Wagler is not a super athlete). The other 4 were Allen Graves, Ebuka Okorie, Hannes Steinbach, and Ivan Kharchenkov (who? oh, he didn't declare for the draft).

[Winter]

So, looking at that, of the 11 players they say qualify for their criteria in this draft, 4 of course are the big 4. The others of the "big 9" who made it were Flemings, Burries and Acuff (i.e. no Brown or Wagler, go figure. Wagler is not a super athlete). The other 4 were Allen Graves, Ebuka Okorie, Hannes Steinbach, and Ivan Kharchenkov (who? oh, he didn't declare for the draft).

Yes, and I thought the Ebuka Okorie selection was interesting. Other PGs missed on the PYA. That includes Brown (probably due to minutes played), Philon, Anderson, Tanner, and Stirtz.

Wagler doesn't dunk which is unusual given his size, and which keeps him from falling into that premium metric. However, it should be noted that even Kon Knueppel rarely dunks.

[dirkfansince1998]

Yes, and I thought the Ebuka Okorie selection was interesting. Other PGs missed on the PYA. That includes Brown (probably due to minutes played), Philon, Anderson, Tanner, and Stirtz.

Wagler doesn't dunk which is unusual given his size, and which keeps him from falling into that premium metric. However, it should be noted that even Kon Knueppel rarely dunks.

I've been spreading the Okorie propaganda for a while now. Statistically he has been on the same level as Dybantsa as far self-created offense goes. Better than any other guard prospect in this years draft class. But he is small and not much of a passer.

[Mavs2021]

I've been spreading the Okorie propaganda for a while now. Statistically he has been on the same level as Dybantsa as far self-created offense goes. Better than any other guard prospect in this years draft class. But he is small and not much of a passer.

It´s 2026. To have the new AI is very important.

[hakeemfaan]

Looking at the last few drafts we had Aleksej Pokuševski, Jeremy Sochan, Ousmane Dieng, Tidiane Salaun, Cody Williams, Nikola Topic (still have some hope) as big wings/forwards with handles picked in the lottery. Not looking great.
Going back even further we had Scottie Barnes and Jonathan Kuminga. Barnes had a low usage role in college but was super efficient. Kuminga might be the best comparisation. Played for the g-league ignite team. Terrible shooting percentages from all over the floor. 
Don't think the big guys with handles rarely bust narrative holds up to reality.

Ament is very young, played in a tough conference, got to the line a lot and his FT % is high which gives some hope for his jump shot. So I'm not sure if all those comparisons are valid.   However, the more I have seen these playoffs and some of the horrendous offensive performances, the more I'm coming around to staying away from Ament. 

However, my philosophy when it comes to the draft has always been consistent. I'm in the Nellie school of swinging for the fences. Sure you can have misses, but FA is there to play it safe.  The Mavs should 100% not be playing it safe with this pick. 

Moving outside the top 10-12 consensus guys, what about Cameron Carr if we move a few spots down? Defense seems to be the knock on him but that athleticism with Coop in transition, will give a lot of easy buckets.  Plus his 3 pt shot looks promising.

[F Gump]

At 8 or 9, the Mavs choice could be having to pick from among leftovers that aren't that enticing. 

Ament - To me, he's too much "projection" (he looks like a player should look like, long and agile) and not enough of a guy who is getting there. His (imagined) upside isn't any more special than those who are farther along and making more progress, and in most cases it's lower (because he has to make more future progress than they do, just to catch up). 

Okorie - I'm not interested. I see him as a very small SG (he is not really a PG in game style or in AST%) who brings all the issues of a small player, and does NOT have a plus ability to make 3s.

The best solution? The NBA needs to ping-pong the Mavs into the top 4, which solves the problem of having iffy players to pick from. I vote for that.

[dirkfansince1998]

Ament is very young, played in a tough conference, got to the line a lot and his FT % is high which gives some hope for his jump shot. So I'm not sure if all those comparisons are valid.   However, the more I have seen these playoffs and some of the horrendous offensive performances, the more I'm coming around to staying away from Ament. 

However, my philosophy when it comes to the draft has always been consistent. I'm in the Nellie school of swinging for the fences. Sure you can have misses, but FA is there to play it safe.  The Mavs should 100% not be playing it safe with this pick. 

Moving outside the top 10-12 consensus guys, what about Cameron Carr if we move a few spots down? Defense seems to be the knock on him but that athleticism with Coop in transition, will give a lot of easy buckets.  Plus his 3 pt shot looks promising.

I am just trying to think of ways to maximize whatever assets the Mavs have right now. When I talk about trading down it's not about trading out of the draft.  If you don't like the guard that is still available when the Mavs pick try to trade down and add another pick. Ideally you end up in a scenario where you turn something like #10 into two mid/late firsts. Now you can take two swings instead of one. 

In the mentioned scenario Carr is a good option. Not as a lottery pick but in the 15-30 range.
Probably not my favorite but that might just be my viewing bias. Baylor had a bad year. Missed the NCAA tournament. Carr was flying under the radar and not getting as much attention as he probably deserved.

Edit: Same for Okorie. Would not take him in the 8-10 range. Another trade down option. And even if he is rising in recent mocks there is still a chance that he drops to #30.

[myconsumerclub]

https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2025.html

fun to look at the past years to see how many players each year attain double figures in scoring. Click on PTS to reorder players by how many points per game they scored and you see this current draft was able to produce 12 players who scored in double figures. Lets come back in a year and see how well this coming draft has done in creating guys who score in double figures.

last seasons draft has 2 years worth of data to compare and they still only have 13 players who have scored in double figures.

I would think that these numbers would increase but it not be something that happens. Here I checked for every year back to 2015


https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2025.html 12 players in double figures

2024 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2024.html
has 13 players in double figures.

2023 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2023.html has 13

2022 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2022.html has 13

2021 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2021.html has 16 but this has all the years data from 2021 added on.

2020 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2020.html has 13

2019 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2019.html has 16

2018 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2018.html has 19

2017 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2017.html has 16

2016 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2016.html has 12

2015 NBA Draft https://www.basketball-reference.com/dra..._2015.html has 13

[Chicagojk]

I am just trying to think of ways to maximize whatever assets the Mavs have right now. When I talk about trading down it's not about trading out of the draft.  If you don't like the guard that is still available when the Mavs pick try to trade down and add another pick. Ideally you end up in a scenario where you turn something like #10 into two mid/late firsts. Now you can take two swings instead of one. 

In the mentioned scenario Carr is a good option. Not as a lottery pick but in the 15-30 range.
Probably not my favorite but that might just be my viewing bias. Baylor had a bad year. Missed the NCAA tournament. Carr was flying under the radar and not getting as much attention as he probably deserved.

Edit: Same for Okorie. Would not take him in the 8-10 range. Another trade down option. And even if he is rising in recent mocks there is still a chance that he drops to #30.

I have not done a deep dive on Carr, but he scares me a little from a distance.   I do agree with you that he is 15-30...and it would not shock me if he fell closer to the back of round 1.   Physical wise he hits a lot of the check marks.  Good size, long wingspan, good athlete, good shooter, etc.   

Although, he did very little at Tenn his first two years.  In fact, he left the program abruptly in December of his second year.  He really played well at Baylor, but the team stunk with two potential first round draft picks.   That gives me pause.  Of course, Mara at Michigan also did very little his first two years before playing great at Michigan and may be a potential lottery pick now.   Still though, Carr gives me concern.   I can see the route for him to have success but I could also see him be one of those guys who disappears after a few years despite having a lot of the things GM's look for in prospects.  

I think Okorie, Tanner and Anderson are all later first round picks.    All are pretty small.   With all the lottery guards going plus guys late lottery/mid first in Philon and Stirtz that is a lot of guards.   With so many point guards, I expect some to fall when we get out of the lottery.   I expect some of these guys go back to school.  I like all three though.  Despite preferring not wanting another small point guard, I will have trouble passing on any.  I might even try to trade up for one if they stay in the draft.

[myconsumerclub]

so over those last 11 years only 156 or 14.18 players drafted each year are able to score enough to average double figures. Of course this is a situation where players can improve and are likely to do so over their rookie seasons. The main flaw above is they do not take into consideration undrafted talent not that it is likely to produce as well but there is always someone.

Nembhard is scoring 6.6 ppg according to facts found here https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612742/players-traditional?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=D&sort=PTS

That makes Ryan the 23rd highest scoring rookie last season meaning he was taken as an undrafted rookie and out performed everyone taken between 24 and 60 in terms of scoring and if we consider just assists alone Nembhard averaged 5.3 assists per game which led the league for rookies and Cooper was behind him with 4.5 APG.

Interesting stuff when you do the analysis using that website. Gives you hope that the mavs drafting experts have improved their skills.

[mvossman]

so over those last 11 years only 156 or 14.18 players drafted each year are able to score enough to average double figures. Of course this is a situation where players can improve and are likely to do so over their rookie seasons. The main flaw above is they do not take into consideration undrafted talent not that it is likely to produce as well but there is always someone.

Nembhard is scoring 6.6 ppg according to facts found here https://www.nba.com/stats/team/1610612742/players-traditional?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=D&sort=PTS

That makes Ryan the 23rd highest scoring rookie last season meaning he was taken as an undrafted rookie and out performed everyone taken between 24 and 60 in terms of scoring and if we consider just assists alone Nembhard averaged 5.3 assists per game which led the league for rookies and Cooper was behind him with 4.5 APG.

Interesting stuff when you do the analysis using that website. Gives you hope that the mavs drafting experts have improved their skills.

Points per game does not seem like a great metric.  It ignores a ton of things, and for rookies especially is going to be heavily impacted by opportunity.  Guys on crappy/tanking teams are going to get way more minutes than they would on a good team, which is a big part of the reason why Ryan ppg is as high as it is.

[myconsumerclub]

Who we have now to pick from next season: This is assuming we win the services of free agents some we may not want to keep but for scoring purposes this is who we have to choose from by PPG scored not that we want them all.

NOTE: Bagley is the only real keeper among free agents if you take into consideration guys who best fit on the Cooper timeline and guys who can hit the 3. So the MAV's currently, potentially, have the following players to contribute to winning games next season should they sign all the available free agents they wish to keep:
Cooper 21 ppg,
Kyrie, out for the season
Naji, 15.2 ppg
PJ, 14.2 ppg
Williams 13 ppg
Max, 12.3 ppg
Klay, 11.7 ppg
Bagley, 11 ppg
Middleton 10 ppg
Gafford, 9.5 ppg
Poulakidas, 8.8 ppg
Ryan 6.6 ppg
Tyler Smith 4.7 ppg
Cisse 4.5 ppg
Lively 4.3 ppg
AJ 3.9 ppg
Martin 3.9 ppg

We have 9 potential players returning that scored in double figures.
Many want to let Middleton and Williams leave for bigger offers than we want to pay them. Maybe nobody decides to take them. Maybe they start the season out of the league. I am unsure what will take place with them.

If we add 3 draft picks and maybe add a new undrafted rookie to the 2 ways that gives us 21 guys to build the team with.

Will Williams and Middleton remain?

If not that is still 19 and of course that includes all 3 of our 2 way guys are still here and 2 have contracts already.

So we still have to replace one of the 2 way guys if we find someone in the undrafted ranks to add on that the MBT likes.

Maybe we want to reward Cisse with a contract or does he accept a place on the 2 ways?

Plus we have 16 guys counting all the draft picks so we need to cut someone to get down to 15 which means in my book we need to either trade AJ or Martin or not sign Bagley and I see no sane GM refusing to sign Bagley given his production and stats for us last season.

Bagley offers us help at a position of great need and leads the team in 3 point fg%.

He can play PF as well as C so he solves a lot problems and Cooper can play at SF some to put out a bigger lineup for certain matchups.

If we consider the following players keepers and we have no Williams or Middleton who say find teams to sign with elsewhere.
Cooper
Kyrie
Naji
PJ
MAX
Klay
Gafford
John 2 way signed for 679k
Ryan
Tyler 2 way signed for 679k
Cisse 2 way may get offered a deal on the regular roster
Lively
Martin is under a large contract
AJ lowest contract we can cut to free up roster spot
Now you add in
Pick 1
Pick 2
Pick 3
1 undrafted rookie

If rookies play on summer league team we will have
Cooper doubtful we risk him
Ryan
John
Tyler
Cisse
plus 3 draft picks and any undrafted guys we ask to play. That could be a very good team.

Come regular season camp we will have some tough choices to make.

Lets say this is what we have to make the team not counting trades and free agency:
5 Lively, Gafford, Cisse, pick
4 Cooper PJ Bagley
3 Naji pick PJ Cooper
2 Max Klay Martin pick#1
1 Kyrie pick#1 Ryan

Two ways: John, Tyler, and one as yet undrafted rookie

Who is on the trade off list? Gafford? Lively,? PJ? NAJI?

Will they go into the season with everyone or trade one or more early on?

Who is the primary target for a free agency signing that is not restricted?

Are there any restricted guys we would make an offer for that we could realistically sign away from some team?

Will they trade because they see something they want or because they want to trade a player off so bad that we are happy to take on another shorter contract and maybe even take back salary to acquire a trade target?

Will the new GM want to trade off lots of guys to clear room for the team to add on who he wants?

If the MAV's wait to bring in a GM much longer who is going to pick the draft picks?

Will he even have a say?

[F Gump]

Who we have now to pick from next season: This is assuming we win the services of free agents some we may not want to keep but for scoring purposes this is who we have to choose from by PPG scored not that we want them all.

NOTE: Bagley is the only real keeper among free agents if you take into consideration guys who best fit on the Cooper timeline and guys who can hit the 3. So the MAV's  currently, potentially, have the following players to contribute to winning games next season should they sign all the available free agents they wish to keep:
Cooper 21 ppg,
Kyrie, out for the season
Naji, 15.2 ppg
PJ, 14.2 ppg
Williams 13 ppg
Max, 12.3 ppg
Klay, 11.7 ppg
Bagley, 11 ppg
Middleton 10 ppg
Gafford, 9.5 ppg
Poulakidas, 8.8 ppg
Ryan 6.6 ppg
Tyler Smith 4.7 ppg
Cisse 4.5 ppg
Lively 4.3 ppg
AJ 3.9 ppg
Martin 3.9 ppg

We have 9 potential players returning that scored in double figures.
Many want to let Middleton and Williams leave for bigger offers than we want to pay them. Maybe nobody decides to take them. Maybe they start the season out of the league. I am unsure what will take place with them.

If we add 3 draft picks and maybe add a new undrafted rookie to the 2 ways that gives us 21 guys to build the team with.

Will Williams and Middleton remain?

If not that is still 19 and of course that includes all 3 of our 2 way guys are still here and 2 have contracts already.

So we still have to replace one of the 2 way guys if we find someone in the undrafted ranks to add on that the MBT likes.

Maybe we want to reward Cisse with a contract or does he accept a place on the 2 ways?

Plus we have 16 guys counting all the draft picks so we need to cut someone to get down to 15 which means in my book we need to either trade AJ or Martin or not sign Bagley and I see no sane GM refusing to sign Bagley given his production and stats for us last season.

Bagley offers us help at a position of great need and leads the team in 3 point fg%.

He can play PF as well as C so he solves a lot problems and Cooper can play at SF some to put out a bigger lineup for certain matchups.

If we consider the following players keepers and we have no Williams or Middleton who say find teams to sign with elsewhere.
Cooper
Kyrie
Naji
PJ
MAX
Klay
Gafford
John 2 way signed for 679k
Ryan
Tyler 2 way signed for 679k
Cisse 2 way may get offered a deal on the regular roster
Lively
Martin is under a large contract
AJ lowest contract we can cut to free up roster spot
Now you add in
Pick 1
Pick 2
Pick 3
1 undrafted rookie

If rookies play on summer league team we will have
Cooper doubtful we risk him
Ryan
John
Tyler
Cisse
plus 3 draft picks and any undrafted guys we ask to play. That could be a very good team.

Come regular season camp we will have some tough choices to make.

Lets say this is what we have to make the team not counting trades and free agency:
5 Lively, Gafford, Cisse, pick
4 Cooper PJ Bagley
3 Naji pick PJ Cooper
2 Max Klay Martin pick#1
1 Kyrie pick#1 Ryan

Two ways: John, Tyler, and one as yet undrafted rookie

Who is on the trade off list? Gafford? Lively,? PJ? NAJI?

Will they go into the season with everyone or trade one or more early on?

Who is the primary target for a free agency signing that is not restricted?

Are there any restricted guys we would make an offer for that we could realistically sign away from some team?

Will they trade because they see something they want or because they want to trade a player off so bad that we are happy to take on another shorter contract and maybe even take back salary to acquire a trade target?

Will the new GM want to trade off lots of guys to clear room for the team to add on who he wants?

If the MAV's wait to bring in a GM much longer who is going to pick the draft picks?

Will he even have a say?

I appreciate your comments.

But while we will discuss these things a lot, I think the question of "who to keep" from the present roster will be greatly driven by the draft results (not by the lottery, but who the Mavs actually get). It impacts not only what positions still need attention, but also what roster room exists.

I do think the Mavs have one item to address no matter what, which will be how to get rid of Johnson and Martin and open up roster space. It's possible those could be filler in a trade for someone useful. Of course, these are questions that an expert GM should be able to navigate.

[Smitty]

I do think the Mavs have one item to address no matter what, which will be how to get rid of Johnson and Martin and open up roster space. It's possible those could be filler in a trade for someone useful. Of course, these are questions that an expert GM should be able to navigate.

I think they'll decline his club option for 27/28 and just waive Johnson this summer.  His $3.2M is not a huge barrier. They have the financial flexibility/room under the Tax line to just keep his money on the books for the last year of his deal and open up that roster spot, if needed.

[F Gump]

I think they'll decline his club option for 27/28 and just waive Johnson this summer.  His $3.2M is not a huge barrier. They have the financial flexibility/room under the Tax line to just keep his money on the books for the last year of his deal and open up that roster spot, if needed.

That's the fallback position, of course. They have plenty of cap room to waive Johnson and eat the contract. I don't think he's on the roster next season - he's just in the way. But he is also 3.2M expiring filler, so my point is that I wouldn't waive him without first exploring whatever trade choices there are.