If there's one thing to look for in the 2026 NBA Draft, it's that teams might not take Cameron Boozer because of the history of the two top prospects in this class in AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson.
There's a strong argument to be made that Boozer outplayed both the BYU and Kansas stars, but that's up for others to debate. Throughout the college basketball season, there wasn't a better player in the country than Boozer to me, though that doesn't always mean everything in the draft process.
And from what general managers and executives are saying around the NBA, the problem with Boozer isn't that he isn't a great player, but that the upside and hype might not be as high as guys like Dybantsa and Peterson.
That doesn't always mean that a player isn't going to be selected with the first or second pick, but when there are two players who have been hyped up for a very long time now, throughout the high school and college process, some organizations might view it as a safer route than taking somebody like Boozer, who didn't have as much love coming up.
"I guess you'd rather fail with [AJ] and his upside, than not," a Western Conference general manager told ESPN. "And I know Peterson has upside, maybe Boozer's upside is a little bit less. ... I just think that [AJ], because he's 6-9 and he could be like 6-10, 230 [pounds] by the time he's 25 years old, he could just be a monster. I think you've just got to go down swinging with him if you go down."
"I think Peterson is the most talented guy," an Eastern Conference executive said, "but the injury stuff is a real question. That's a valid concern, and it's been a weird year. But he's a huge talent, and he was No. 1 at the start of the season for a reason."
There's a lot that goes into draft decisions, so it's unfair to say that Boozer has no chance to go in the top two. However, if I had to bet on it right now, I'd say that he ends up going third, and would be a bit surprised if he fell anything lower than that.