With the NBA draft and summer league in the books, scouts are turning their attention to the 2025 draft, which has enormous star power headlined by Cooper Flagg, Ace Bailey, V.J. Edgecombe, Dylan Harper and many others. But what about the 2026 draft?
Inevitably, their gazes always peer down the road toward the future. It was clear sitting alongside NBA scouts at multiple camps and events over the past few months that they're already pouring information and scouting reports on the 2026 class into their internal databases, as well.
Being an NBA draft prospect is one part of the criteria for our rankings. No one can really predict what type of NBA player a prospect will become -- injuries, trades, roster makeup, coaching and many other factors ultimately impact that outcome. Still, we already have an early sense of where the top players stand for the 2026 draft class, even if this is as fluid as can be and will change over the course of each of the next two seasons.
So, although there's a long way to go, we asked scouts for their early opinions and recent evaluations of the top 2026 prospects. Let's peek through the lenses of NBA scouts from the Eastern and Western conferences to see what translates, early NBA player comparisons and potential draft ranges for the six prospects mentioned most frequently by scouts this summer.