Draft 2026 NBA Draft Prospects Thread

Do we trade away our pick or draft a player?

  • Draft

    Votes: 50 84.7%

  • Trade

    Votes: 5 8.5%

  • Cash Considerations

    Votes: 4 6.8%
  • Total voters
    59
spurs3223 said:
So ya'll really out on Yaxel eh? I guess i'll have to play catch-up. I haven't paid as much attention to this draft class as I have the last few years cuz we're already pretty damn good and I'm pumped for the playoffs rather than ping pong balls.

Yaxel had my eye last year tho. Just scrolled through this thread a bit and saw the trash talking vid... it's not *that* bad but it's also not great eh? I think his 3 ball will probably return tho. I dunno, maybe I'll sour on him too when I deep dive. Just seems like he has the size and versatility that we need: basically be big, play smart, and don't suck anything so much that you're exploitable. That'll get you 15 minutes a game imo. Maybe I got him pegged wrong.
Click to expand...
Yaxel took part in the predraft process last year. Logic tells me that if the Spurs weren’t interested then, they wouldn’t be now with how intensive their background checks are.

The decision to go back to college after no team would give him a promise (he was seeking a promise, he said) says a lot of things about Yaxel. One is he wasn’t confident about his ability to play in the NBA at the age of 23, and two is he went back for the money he was being offered (which says a lot about his mindset, too).

Edit: one more thing I’ll add is that you have to ask what he had to gain (aside from the money) from going back to college. Raise his draft stock? That didn’t happen - he’s still in the same range and he didn’t improve much as a player. Win an NCAA championship? Let’s be real. That’s not a high bar and he isn’t even a defacto number one guy on his team. Red flags on top red flags, tbh.
 
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OK Computer said:
Yaxel took part in the predraft process last year. Logic tells me that if the Spurs weren’t interested then, they wouldn’t be now with how intensive their background checks are.

The decision to go back to college after no team would give him a promise (he was seeking a promise, he said) says a lot of things about Yaxel. One is he wasn’t confident about his ability to play in the NBA at the age of 23, and two is he went back for the money he was being offered (which says a lot about his mindset, too).
Click to expand...
Spurs probably liked bryant more and gave him the promise with the second pick.Yaxel also got alot of money to
return back to college.
 
onechance87 said:
Spurs probably liked bryant more and gave him the promise with the second pick.Yaxel also got alot of money to
return back to college.
Click to expand...
Yeah, and those things should say a lot. For a team like the Spurs who tries to minimize risks by vetting their personnel and checks if their priorities are in the right place - Yaxel doing that is for sure a negative. Second, CB wasn’t guaranteed to fall in the Spurs’ laps, and even if they did prefer him over Yaxel, that should tell you the quality of the prospect he is - he’s not a no-brainer pick for this team, not enough to be 50/50 with CB who wasn’t exactly a can’t miss prospect himself.

It had to be at least debatable between CB and Yaxel and even if you remove the Spurs out of the picture last year, if Yaxel was any good then other teams would have been interested. They weren’t. And he’s now a year older and hasn’t improved much.
 
OK Computer said:
The decision to go back to college after no team would give him a promise (he was seeking a promise, he said) says a lot of things about Yaxel. One is he wasn’t confident about his ability to play in the NBA at the age of 23, and two is he went back for the money he was being offered (which says a lot about his mindset, too).

Edit: one more thing I’ll add is that you have to ask what he had to gain (aside from the money) from going back to college. Raise his draft stock? That didn’t happen - he’s still in the same range and he didn’t improve much as a player. Win an NCAA championship? Let’s be real. That’s not a high bar and he isn’t even a defacto number one guy on his team. Red flags on top red flags, tbh.
Click to expand...
OK Computer said:
Yeah, and those things should say a lot. For a team like the Spurs who tries to minimize risks by vetting their personnel and checks if their priorities are in the right place - Yaxel doing that is for sure a negative. Second, CB wasn’t guaranteed to fall in the Spurs’ laps, and even if they did prefer him over Yaxel, that should tell you the quality of the prospect he is - he’s not a no-brainer pick for this team, not enough to be 50/50 with CB who wasn’t exactly a can’t miss prospect himself.
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I agree than Lendeborg doesn't seem to fit the profile Spurs typically go after with a lottery pick, but I definitely do not agree with the idea that going back to college for the money should be portrayed as a character flaw or a red flag. If anything, he's doing the same thing you say Spurs themselves do: minimizing risks.

The NBA is a cold business and you may be gone in 2 years, confidence doesn't make you immune to injuries and it doesn't hurt to start your NBA dream knowing you're already set should anything unforeseen happen. I can't really speak of Lendeborg's character one way or the other, but the decision to go back to college in and of itself shouldn't disqualify him from consideration.
 
scott said:
If anyone wants to put together a daily Spurs Draft Guide to the tournament (similar to how sr21 does the daily rooting guide for the Hawks swap and the HCA race), it would be highly appreciated by those of us (me) who haven’t been paying any attention to college hoops this year. Nothing elaborate, just a brief “guys to watch” for the daily schedule.

Pretty please :)
Click to expand...
That probably would be perfect for @OK Computer. He did excellent work at ST.
 
I think that the Spurs now have a complete culture reset from last season and will choose players that fit. The core is now real ballers with no social life that is publicized. Gym warriors and hoop heads will fit in along with squeaky clean family and developmental background checks. The fact that the Spurs targeted Castle while in HS is very telling. They might draft a 6' guy over the perfect archetype that doesn't fit. Maybe that's too stilted, but, you get my drift. It's hard to argue against the last 16 months of growth as a team. I finally trust MATFO to bring in the right players and develop them at the right pace.
 
I do think Lendebourg raised his draft stock, didn't he? He's in the same boat as Labaron Philon, who wasn't really getting a solid first round grade and so went back. It worked for both of them.

Overall, Lendebourg is exactly what the Spurs need, a toolsy bigger wing who can play defense. The two big questions seem to be his age and his character/personality.

At this point, I don't think his age is a major concern, at least for the Spurs. They're rounding out a roster with specific needs. Would it be great if he was 21? Of course. But he's not. As for character, the issue isn't that he went back to school. That's not a character issue to me. It's the somewhat immature behavior calling out opponents, and the older stuff about not being able to stay in school because of grades.

Are those big concerns? I don't know. I'm sure the team will interview him, talk to the people around him. Dusty May, his coach, seems to be trustworthy for this, as opposed to a guy like Nate Oats, who I think is a schemer and duplicitous. But I do think team chemistry and culture are extremely important right now.
 
ginobilized said:
I think that the Spurs now have a complete culture reset from last season and will choose players that fit. The core is now real ballers with no social life that is publicized. Gym warriors and hoop heads will fit in along with squeaky clean family and developmental background checks. The fact that the Spurs targeted Castle while in HS is very telling. They might draft a 6' guy over the perfect archetype that doesn't fit. Maybe that's too stilted, but, you get my drift. It's hard to argue against the last 16 months of growth as a team. I finally trust MATFO to bring in the right players and develop them at the right pace.
Click to expand...
Spurs are early adopters. They were supposedly on Wemby at 13, and the Castle thing could have been because his father Jeremy played ball at Wake with Tim.
 
Ariel said:
The sad part is, this is pretty much the case for just about every forward prospect on the radar (Haugh, Lendeborg, Jefferson, Swain, Steinnbach, Morez, Quaintance, Lopez, etc) so it's not like there's an obvious answer.
Click to expand...
yeah. that's why I'm one of the few who voted for "trade away" in the voting. still fun to discuss the projects, I do like quite a few of them. if the Spurs drafted in the 20s, things get more easy IMO. there are trade down scenarios as well, we just didn't discuss them a lot in this thread. in the 20s you don't expect a player without flaws. if they pick, say, Amari Allen at, say, 26 (we traded with the Sixers and got some future picks) and we will see how that works out in two or three years.
 
How / why did JT Toppin drop to the middle of the second round in mocks? Tankathon has him down there and I missed the memo.
 
A new day brings new rankings once again for me.

Last night’s game and comments in the game thread said a lot of how fast the Spurs were attacking. This makes me want to move “faster” players higher such as: Carr, Swain. @spurraider21 ‘s words on Carr swayed me to move him up as well.

Another reason and perhaps the biggest reason I’m making this adjustment is again, how Mitch tells us again and again what scheme and strategy they’re going for:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2033775712998420539

“Timing, spacing, not letting the ball “stick”, probing”… all of this sounds like the ideal type of fit in the draft is once again an offensively versatile player. That means a player with some ball handling and uses it to probe (sorry Cenac), less projection of good shooting but has shot good volume (sorry Morez, Peat, Ejiofor).

New rankings:

1. Ament
2. Carr
3. Swain - if we want to see more crossovers or “sauce” like we saw from Castle last night, Swain is an additional weapon for that.
4. Joshua Jefferson
5. Haugh
6. Tounde
7. Cenac
8. Hannes
 
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I have this theory that good players on good college teams tend to get somewhat underrated in the draft process because their counting stats aren’t as good. But by the time they turn pro, they reveal just how good they really are. Several recent examples come to mind: Castle, Clingan, Knueppel, Edey, McCain.

If this is correct, then some players in our range that we really ought to be taking a hard look at include Koa Peat, Yaxel Lendeborg, and Thomas Haugh. These are the star players of college teams seeded 1 in the NCAA tournament.

Cameron Boozer is too, of course, but he’s a pipe dream at this point.
 
OK Computer said:
A new day brings new rankings once again for me.

Last night’s game and comments in the game thread said a lot of how fast the Spurs were attacking. This makes me want to move “faster” players higher such as: Carr, Swain. @spurraider21 ‘s words on Carr swayed me to move him up as well.

Another reason and perhaps the biggest reason I’m making this adjustment is again, how Mitch tells us again and again what scheme and strategy they’re going for:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2033775712998420539

“Timing, spacing, not letting the ball “stick”, probing”… all of this sounds like the ideal type of fit in the draft is once again an offensively versatile player. That means a player with some ball handling and uses it to probe (sorry Cenac), less projection of good shooting but has shot good volume (sorry Morez, Peat, Ejiofor).

New rankings:

1. Ament
2. Carr
3. Swain - if we want to see more crossovers or “sauce” like we saw from Castle last night, Swain is an additional weapon for that.
4. Joshua Jefferson
5. Haugh
6. Tounde
7. Cenac
8. Hannes
Click to expand...

I'm a bit worried that the faster attacks won't work in the playoffs, when traditionally things get more bogged down and slower as possession by possession counts. We'll face that when we face it and I know the coaching staff is aware. We have a good half-court offense but it can get stuck at times.

One reason they want to play fast aside from having players that can do it is that it solves the problem of Wembanyama in the half-court. He gums things up with his size and radius for rim attacks by the guards; so why not attack when the defense is in flux and not set?
 
Uriel said:
I have this theory that good players on good college teams tend to get somewhat underrated in the draft process because their counting stats aren’t as good. But by the time they turn pro, they reveal just how good they really are. Several recent examples come to mind: Castle, Clingan, Knueppel, Edey, McCain.

If this is correct, then some players in our range that we really ought to be taking a hard look at include Koa Peat, Yaxel Lendeborg, and Thomas Haugh. These are the star players of college teams seeded 1 in the NCAA tournament.

Cameron Boozer is too, of course, but he’s a pipe dream at this point.
Click to expand...

Fully agree. There's an idea floating around that college isn't anything, it doesn't prep anything, and I've long disagreed. You'd hear it when people still believed G-League was a better development situation, and idea that died a cold hard death a while ago.

Good college programs can make good players. You nailed it with the UConn guys. Cam Spencer is also doing well as a role player. I'm a bit surprised that Tristan Newton hasn't emerged, but maybe he will.

Of course not all players make it from any situation. One thing I hope the FO looks into is actually using that early 2nd on a prospect this time. There are a lot of good young centers in the league right now taken with later picks. I get that we didn't/couldn't take Reynauld for whatever reason. But every year there are options.
 
Bryce Simon (Veccine's sidekick) has a breakdown of Carr up

gametheorysamv.substack.com

2026 NBA Draft: Cameron Carr is One of the Most Dynamic Wing Floor Spacers in the Country

The Baylor wing, Cameron Carr, has an elite skill that NBA teams value but looking at his all around game is important.
gametheorysamv.substack.com gametheorysamv.substack.com

I don't have a subscription, but the 5 minute video preview at the top gives a flavor of what he's about

For my purposes, I was sold at:

One of the Most Dynamic Wing Floor Spacers in the Country​

 
I bet Denver is praying that Carr falls to them tbh. He's the exact type of 3&D athletic wing they desperately need.
 
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