The Athletic NBA Daily
How good is the 2026 NBA Draft Class? with Sam Vecenie | Slam N Jam
31 Jan 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What makes the 2026 NBA Draft Class so promising?
Welcome to the Saturday Slammin' Jam here on the Athletic NBA Daily brought to you by Amazon Prime. On today's show, Sam Ficini joins me to discuss the 2026 draft class, the current rookie class. And I hate to say it, Alex Spears is sick and he can't be on the show, which is so sad, which means no trivia. So please send him get well soon notes on Blue Sky with me.
is san vasini the the the only man i want to talk to you about the draft uh just because listen you do the best work obligated is really the reason it's not even that's not even true that's not even true it's not even true i just want to talk to you about the draft um Thanks for coming on.
The first question I have is we keep hearing about how great this class is and how teams need to be tanking to get these high draft picks, which I think is true in most drafts. But how deep is this class of guys that could potentially be franchise-changing players?
Chapter 2: How deep is the talent pool in the 2026 NBA Draft?
Yeah, I mean, so first and foremost, I want to apologize to everybody for, like, sweating profusely while we're doing this. Just because my wife and I are moving in a couple of weeks. And, like, we just don't have, like, a great situation right now that will allow me to stay cool.
Listen, everybody in America is like, we wish that we were sweating. So, you know.
Andrew, it was 105 here on Tuesday.
That's crazy. That's crazy.
Chapter 3: What impact does NIL have on second-round prospects?
It's going to be negative six in OKC tomorrow. That's crazy.
Yeah. So... you asked the question, like just how strong is this draft? Right. And I would say it's the strongest we've seen. I mean, at least since 2023, I don't think that any of the, Darren Peterson, AJ DeBansa, or Cam Boozer have quite reached the level of Victor Wembanyama as a draft prospect. Just point blank.
But I do like all three of them more than I liked either Brandon Miller or Scoot Henderson, both of whom were really, really well regarded going into that draft, obviously. Yeah. I think they're all on the level of Cade when Cade was a no-doubter number one overall pick. And there are three of those guys in this class. And I truly love all three of them.
You brought up, though, how deep does the class go?
Chapter 4: How are current NBA rookies performing this season?
Honestly, I really like Caleb Wilson, Keaton Wagler, and Kingston Flemings. I think all three of those guys are... genuine, real top five picks and top four picks even maybe in a normal draft. Keaton Wagler has all sorts of upside and he just has so many outs as a player because he's so polished. He's really, really smart from all the intel I've gotten. He's a really high-level human being.
He is an awesome shooter. It's almost...
Chapter 5: What are the standout performances from the 2026 rookie class?
hard for me to imagine a way that he doesn't at least become like a really good nba player and i think there's like significant upside beyond that kingston fleming's is just like an absolute joke athletically uh the explosiveness the power the speed with which he plays the downhill force and then caleb wilson is as productive as anybody in the country right now he's averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds a game i mean it's fairly laughable that he's on the naysmith defensive player of the year watch list like he's not a great defender right now and i don't know what those people are looking at
But he is somebody that is incredibly efficient around the rim. He dunks everything. There are some touch questions, but like, you know, it's like a Pascal Siakam starter kit. And if he's a really, really good kid from what I gather, like really engaging, really smart. So, you buy into all of what he brings to the table other than just the developing skill level right now.
And that's going to have to come along. He's going to have to continue to grow as a shooter, going to have to grow as a playmaker more and more. But, you know, if you're telling me that I could maybe get a Pascal Siakam starter kit at like four or five or six, that's,
Chapter 6: What fake trades are being discussed for Giannis?
where I think there's like a pretty reasonable chance that he can reach that kind of threshold given that he's like six, nine with a seven, one, seven, you know, seven, one ish wingspan. It could be a little bit longer. It could be a little bit shorter. Um, there's just a lot to be excited about with this draft class. And, you know, you can even go beyond that and start talking about, you know,
I'm a little bit lower on Darius Acuff, but I know a lot of people are really excited about him. You can certainly talk about Koa Peet, who is one of the best players on the best team in the country. You can talk about Mikel Brown's upside, even though he has not had a great year this year. You can talk about Jaden Quaintance's incredible defensive upside.
You can talk about Nate Amon as a guy that has really started to figure things out over the course of his last five or six games.
Chapter 7: Which teams are potential trade destinations for Giannis?
There's just a lot to be excited about in this draft class, and I do think that from an overall strength and depth perspective, this is going to go down as one of, if not the best draft of this most recent decade.
So in your top 100, you have A.J. DeBansa number one. Do you still feel that way?
I don't. Look, I have him. I wrote a thing today or yesterday whenever this is going up. I think it came out on Wednesday or Thursday where I kind of talked about some of AJ's problems in Big 12 play so far where There just isn't enough variation on his drives. We're not sitting here saying that he should change who he is, right?
Chapter 8: What is the future outlook for the NBA's rookie class?
He's so good at getting downhill. He's so powerful and physical. And his ability to bend and play with explosiveness out of that bend and be flexible on his drives is really, really impressive and really, really important, I think. And it makes him who he is, right? he gets to the foul line like nine times a game, 10 times a game because of this.
And that's an immensely incredible skill and incredibly important in terms of translation as well. But he's not a great shooter right now. He's not an awesome decision maker whenever he gets kind of bogged down in the lane. And on top of that, I think his handle is not particularly great right now. And the best example of that, I think, came in both the Texas Tech and Arizona games.
And we saw this actually in even Team USA stuff this summer, actually. But Whenever teams play this like very gap heavy coverage where they'll like kind of dig in and try to stop his drives, he just kind of automatically picks up the ball and he's always trying to gather and get to the rim and play with his stride length and play with his explosiveness and everything like that.
And again, I don't want to take that away from him, but the guys that win in the NBA is these big apex wing, you know, scorers and decision makers, right?
Yeah.
You can look at Kawhi Leonard. You can look at Jason Tatum. You can look at Jimmy Butler, whoever, right? They all play with a real degree of poise. And they all play with a real degree of... okay, this first thing didn't work. I keep my handle alive. I put it between my legs and I stop and I try and figure out a different way to draw defenders and then I make a kick out.
Or in Kawhi's case, he just shoots over the top of everybody because he's like one of the two best shooters on planet Earth with Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, right? So those skills are right now lacking from AJ. And I think the player that it reminds me most of whenever I watch him is kind of Jalen Brown when he came out of Cal.
Yeah.
And if you remember that Cal tape with Jalen Brown, he's playing next to Ivan Rad. He was playing in a situation that is actually like way worse spaced than the situation that AJ is playing in right now at BYU, where he has multiple 40% three-point shooters next to him and Rob Wright and Richie Saunders. And he has a great ceiling big and everything like that.
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