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The 2026 NBA Draft lottery is on Mother’s Day this year, with every team that didn’t make the playoffs seeking the gift of the right ping-pong ball combination on Sunday, May 10. A whole batch of franchises tanked this past season just to have a better shot at securing the best choice possible in what’s considered a strong draft class. So much so that NBA commissioner Adam Silver is considering radical changes to the NBA draft lottery system.
Teams have been lining up for the top of the draft board. BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson of Kansas, Duke’s Cameron Boozer and UNC freshman Caleb Wilson have largely been considered the best four prospects but in varying orders. The potential prizes extend beyond that this year, though. The latest first-round mock draft conducted by USA TODAY Sports through Microsoft Copilot’s artificial intelligence chatbot shows – when compared to one done just two weeks earlier with the same team order – the perception of this draft is fluid before its exact order is known.
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The top five picks remained the same, but there was plenty of movement from there. New prospects were elevated into the first round by AI or higher in the NBA draft pecking order with another two weeks of intel. Other players were dropped out of the top 30 selections. More will be decided over the next week or so, when the NBA Draft lottery and NBA Draft Scouting Combine are held in Chicago.
Here’s Microsoft Copilot’s latest 2026 NBA mock draft heading into the draft lottery, as curated by USA TODAY Sports
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See NBA mock draft first‑round projections
1. Washington Wizards: AJ Dybantsa
TEAM: BYU | POSITION: Wing | BORN: Massachusetts | HEIGHT: 6-9 | DRAFT AGE: 19 – The Wizards have the second-worst offense in the NBA and could instantly inject life into their offense by selecting AJ Dybantsa, the NCAA scoring champion and Julius Erving Award winner. He emphasized that point during his one game for BYU in March Madness, putting up 35 points and 10 rebounds. The Big 12 Rookie of the Year led the nation in unassisted points scored (680) by a wide margin this season, per CBB Analytics. The…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/top-picks-ai-nba-mock-212508257.html
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Publish date : 2026-05-05 21:25:00
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