Draft 2026 NBA Draft Prospects Thread

Do we trade away our pick or draft a player?

  • Draft

    Votes: 44 89.8%

  • Trade

    Votes: 3 6.1%

  • Cash Considerations

    Votes: 2 4.1%
  • Total voters
    49
I've been trying to dive into this class the last couple of days, and I have to say I wasn't too impressed with the quality where the Spurs are supposed to pick (10-14). The mocks are filled with undersized guards in the top 10 but I fear come the actual draft a few of those will slide, I hope the Spurs don't fall into this trap, the last thing we need is undersized, ball dominant guards with questionable shooting.

Among the rest of 6'4" and under guards, you can find a couple older, utility forwards with questionable shooting (Haugh, Lendenborg), flawed / tough to fit archetypes (Koa Peat, Steinbach), injury risks (Quaintance). I have to say between those possibly available at that range, Nate Ament and Chris Cenac look the most enticing to me, with a mixture of size, skill and shooting potential, but both have bust potential as well. Otherwise I wouldn't hate it if the Spurs traded down or even out.
 
Bruno said:
What will matters is where these second round picks will be: in the standard contract area or in the two way contract area?

Last draft, the frontier between these contracts was around the 40th pick. This year, Spurs will have Jazz, Blazers and Heat second round picks that are currently at #36, #44 and #45.

Regarding two way players, Ingram and Umude don't look like keepers. Spurs will have at least 2 two-way slots open.

And a player I can really see Spurs picking in the second round, if he's available, is Karaban. Karaban, picked with the Utah pick and signed to a 4 years contract with the second round exception, will give Spurs a solid rotation player on the cheap for 4 years.
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mo7888 said:
I'm definitely for swapping up our 2-way class, I just dont know all those spots come from the draft. Looking towards next season I don't see us signing any vets that are going to demand significant playing time and in that scenario I'd probably lean toward adding a couple locker room type vets and add a couple of these 2nds to the active roster. Karaban is absolutely on the list for one of those as a shooter thats ready to play, if needed, on day one. A couple others would be Dame Sarr, if he continues his fall and stays in, there's longterm upside there with a lot of bust potential and that's fine in the 2nd. I'd also be very interested in Motiejus Krivas as a 3rd Center. So to re-cap, 5 end of the bench spots- use 1 for our first, two on 2nd's, and two on locker room vets. Then use the other 2nd on a 2-way (of course we'll probably sell it instead) and fill the other 2 way spots with FA's.

That's how I think we should go assuming that there isn't a big trade on the table that I just don't see right now...
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I don't claim to be a good talent scout, but when I watched Karaban, McNeeley, Drake Powell and Ian Jackson last year at the Maui Invitational, Karaban really stood out to me in all the worst ways. I don't think this guy is a player at all, and most of his success at the college level mostly just comes from being older than everyone else. He is a decent enough shooter, but I saw zero lateral mobility, no way to really impact the game, very unathletic and didn't even come off as an overly heady player.

I would absolutely hate to burn a pick on this guy. I grade him even lower than someone like Drew Timme coming out of college.

Just my opinion though, which no one is going to ask for on this topic.
 
Ariel said:
I've been trying to dive into this class the last couple of days, and I have to say I wasn't too impressed with the quality where the Spurs are supposed to pick (10-14). The mocks are filled with undersized guards in the top 10 but I fear come the actual draft a few of those will slide, I hope the Spurs don't fall into this trap, the last thing we need is undersized, ball dominant guards with questionable shooting.

Among the rest of 6'4" and under guards, you can find a couple older, utility forwards with questionable shooting (Haugh, Lendenborg), flawed / tough to fit archetypes (Koa Peat, Steinbach), injury risks (Quaintance). I have to say between those possibly available at that range, Nate Ament and Chris Cenac look the most enticing to me, with a mixture of size, skill and shooting potential, but both have bust potential as well. Otherwise I wouldn't hate it if the Spurs traded down or even out.
Click to expand...
Luckily we're due for a top-4 pick, so your point is moot.
 
Ariel said:
I've been trying to dive into this class the last couple of days, and I have to say I wasn't too impressed with the quality where the Spurs are supposed to pick (10-14). The mocks are filled with undersized guards in the top 10 but I fear come the actual draft a few of those will slide, I hope the Spurs don't fall into this trap, the last thing we need is undersized, ball dominant guards with questionable shooting.

Among the rest of 6'4" and under guards, you can find a couple older, utility forwards with questionable shooting (Haugh, Lendenborg), flawed / tough to fit archetypes (Koa Peat, Steinbach), injury risks (Quaintance). I have to say between those possibly available at that range, Nate Ament and Chris Cenac look the most enticing to me, with a mixture of size, skill and shooting potential, but both have bust potential as well. Otherwise I wouldn't hate it if the Spurs traded down or even out.
Click to expand...

Right now it seems like there are nine star-grade prospects in terms of potential and, yeah, about half of them are smaller guards. If that rings true, then the Spurs are just outside of that grouping, and I agree that things seem to dip after that point.
 
Guru of Nothing said:
I was high on Ament initially, and maybe he's turned a corner, but the Risacher vibe is hard to unfeel. Also, I'm not so sure about 6'10" reports either. I'm guessing he's closer to 6'8" than 6'10". Still, won't be sad if we grab him in the 10-14 range.
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If you get a Risacher at a pick around that range, then yeah you'd be happy.

But Ament does look better than Risacher. Ament can generate his own shots, even if he's not extremely athletic. He uses his length to rise up over people for mid-range and other jumpers. Risacher had a better percentage from deep (his draft year) but I think that was always fool's gold. He was hot for a period of time, but was not the best shooter before. Risacher had a negative assist/turnover ratio, Ament's is pretty nice. Risacher fouled a lot more. And Ament gets to the line a lot (although I think that may not be sustainable).

Other than questions whether Ament can scale down in usage, he'd be the perfect pick out of this draft for us, but he'll be plucked earlier.
 
Ariel said:
I've been trying to dive into this class the last couple of days, and I have to say I wasn't too impressed with the quality where the Spurs are supposed to pick (10-14). The mocks are filled with undersized guards in the top 10 but I fear come the actual draft a few of those will slide, I hope the Spurs don't fall into this trap, the last thing we need is undersized, ball dominant guards with questionable shooting.

Among the rest of 6'4" and under guards, you can find a couple older, utility forwards with questionable shooting (Haugh, Lendenborg), flawed / tough to fit archetypes (Koa Peat, Steinbach), injury risks (Quaintance). I have to say between those possibly available at that range, Nate Ament and Chris Cenac look the most enticing to me, with a mixture of size, skill and shooting potential, but both have bust potential as well. Otherwise I wouldn't hate it if the Spurs traded down or even out.
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Breh check out Joshua Jefferson. Come on breh
 
I wouldn’t be so attached to who’s mocked where right now for mock followers… there’s going to be a lot of movement soon enough. Like, there’s no way Swain stays at the end of the first round. He’s jumping up. Watch all the guys you can right now (if you like doing this). There should be no range of who to watch.
 
Gonna leave this in here. Looks like the league is officially going to crack down on tanking. Wild. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2024603693673271697

Screenshot-2026-02-19-at-4-10-20-PM.png
 
Last edited:
Changing the pick protections makes sense.
Something like disallowing multiple year top picks seems okay, but not for consecutive years.

Freezing draft odds at any point is just completely dumb. Can't make that make sense in any way at all.

Flattening odds just makes already good teams better.

Many of these indicate that the league bigwigs are taking the wrong approach to the whole issue. They keep trying to punish teams for doing what is only natural -- to get the better players, so they can compete. Their efforts to punish teams for trying to get better players will just reward teams that are already better. It's beyond stupid. If anything, you need to reward bad teams somehow, and find a way to do so that's not tanking (if that's what you think the problem is). These fail to do the job of rewarding very bad teams for playing hard, because playing hard just removes their possibilities of becoming better.

But again, none of this is an issue. Tanking is not a problem. It never has been. It's just the gambling companies that are griefing and they can go EFF themselves.
 
The one where "Teams can’t pick top-4 the year after making conference finals" is dumb af and seems to be specifically targeted at the Mavs/Flagg and the Pacers this year.
 
^ 7'1" with a 7'7" wingspan and looks very strong, hands must be huge by the way he grabs the ball but I have to say mobility seems like an issue in that video, looks kind of lumbering. In any case, I'd rather take a flyer on a draft and stash for guy like this than another Juan Nuñez or Harrison Ingram, or even towel-grandpa Biyombo
 
Ngoy is damn impressive physically but he is about 3 years late in his development compared to the usual french good prospect.

French wise, this a very poor draft. 2027 and 2028 should be way better with players like Hugo Yimga-Moukouri and Nathan Soliman.
 
Bruno said:
Ngoy is damn impressive physically but he is about 3 years late in his development compared to the usual french good prospect.

French wise, this a very poor draft. 2027 and 2028 should be way better with players like Hugo Yimga-Moukouri and Nathan Soliman.
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Oscar Wembanyama is expected to be in the 2027 Draft as well, but I'd rather him come out this year as he's already eligible and could very likely be had with one of our 3 SRP's. That way we don't have to worry about him improving significantly this season and then risk him being a late FRP in next year's weaker draft class.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2013340439877685677
 
BatManu20 said:
Oscar Wembanyama is expected to be in the 2027 Draft as well, but I'd rather him come out this year as he's already eligible and could very likely be had with one of our 3 SRP's. That way we don't have to worry about him improving significantly this season and then risk him being a late FRP in next year's weaker draft class.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2013340439877685677
Click to expand...
If Cody Williams went #10 for the sole merit of being JDubb's little brother, it wouldn't surprise me if some team took a chance on Wemby Jr with a late first rounder, even if his game doesn't warrant it yet.
 
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