The NBA draft is almost here, and after the conclusion of the 2026 NFL draft, many are excited to see how things can shape up in the basketball world.
At the top of the prospect list, Duke star Cameron Boozer is perhaps the best in the world.
I don't want to say that any prospect in the NBA is guaranteed anything thus far, as every player will have to go through pre-draft stuff, but Boozer has to be one of the more confident players in the country, as his future looks extremely bright, with many expecting him to at least be a top-three pick.
As the draft continues to get closer, it sounds like there's a real push for Boozer being drafted much sooner than most anticipated just a few weeks ago, even if it's only up a spot or two. There were questions about whether Boozer would be the third pick, as most viewed him as a worse prospect than Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybantsa.
However, the latest mock draft once again had him going second overall to the Indiana Pacers, showing that there's a lot of intrigue in him being one of the first two names called in the upcoming class.
“While consensus firmly places Cameron Boozer third in this draft, he's the most dominant freshman since Zion Williamson. He's also a half-year younger than both AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson. If there's a team willing to "reach" on Boozer — and this writer would not consider this an actual reach — it's probably the Pacers, with an analytics-leaning front office that typically puts special emphasis on feel.
“Boozer's brain works at warp speed; he reads the floor several steps ahead of the defense and has so many ways to punish lapses. Boozer is an incredibly versatile scorer, with bully-ball strength on the block, an easy 3-point shot and real functionality as a ball-handler out of the pick-and-roll. He's a limited athlete, to be clear, but his strength will translate, and he's so skilled and so smart that he reduces those concerns considerably. He will hammer the glass, embrace a chameleonic role and render consistent winning plays for a Pacers team ready to flip the switch back to title contention,” Christopher Kline of FanSided wrote.
Kline brought up a lot of important facts here, and the biggest one is how dominant Boozer was during his time at Duke.
We can look at Dybantsa and Peterson and suggest that they're great prospects, and I'll never say people are wrong for doing so, but we also have to factor in that Boozer just completely dominated college basketball in an era where mostly older guys are the ones doing so.