Cam Boozer Is About to Pass Cooper Flagg as the Best NBA Draft Prospect: What the 2026 Draft Looks Like Now
Cam Boozer might be the best NBA Draft prospect since Victor Wembanyama. He might also be sitting at the back of the lottery on draft night because three other players in the 2026 class are arguably just as good.
The 2026 NBA Draft is the deepest top of the board the league has seen in years. AJ Dybantsa is going first. Darryn Peterson is probably going second. Boozer and Caleb Wilson are fighting for the third and fourth spots, although none of those four prospects has separated definitively. All of them feel like future All-Stars. All of them have legitimate cases for the top pick depending on which team is selecting and what they need.
Boozer is the most college-ready of the bunch. He just turned 18 and finished a freshman season at Duke that, by almost every metric, was even better than what Cooper Flagg did at Duke a year earlier. Boozer averaged more than 21 points and 10 rebounds, shot over 50 percent from the field, and ran Duke’s offense from the high post like a 25-year-old veteran. The Blue Devils were a different team than the Flagg version, but Boozer was every bit as dominant.
The physical profile is the calling card. Boozer is 6-foot-8 barefoot, 250 pounds, with a frame that suggests he could play either forward spot in the NBA without giving up anything to anyone. He has the strength to bully smaller defenders on the block, the touch to score over bigger defenders, and the passing instincts to find shooters when defenses collapse. The shot has improved every year. The mid-range game is automatic. The three-point shot is reliable enough to take the open ones.
The defense is the area where Boozer separates from most modern big-man prospects. He has the lateral quickness to switch onto guards in pick and roll. He has the timing and length to block shots at the rim. He has the basketball IQ to make the right rotation eight times out of ten. That defensive versatility is what makes him a top-three pick regardless of position.
The case against Boozer is that the modern NBA is built around perimeter creation, and his ceiling is closer to a high-end secondary creator than a true offensive engine. He is not going to be the guy who breaks defenses down off the dribble for 40 minutes a game. He is going to be the guy who runs the offense from the high post, sets devastating screens, and finishes around the rim with a soft touch.
That is still incredibly valuable. The most successful modern teams have a player who can do exactly what Boozer does. The question is whether his ceiling is a slightly better Pascal Siakam or whether it is something rarer.
The Dybantsa case is different. The BYU forward is one of the most explosive athletes in the class, with a perimeter scoring punch and a defensive ceiling that is genuinely Wembanyama-adjacent at the wing position. He is going to go first overall unless something dramatic happens in pre-draft workouts.
Peterson is the perimeter creator the class needs. He has the most NBA-ready handle of any prospect. He shoots it from deep. He plays at NBA pace. He is the safest bet to be a productive starter from day one.
Caleb Wilson is the wildcard. The North Carolina forward has the highest variance in the class. He could be the best player in the draft or he could be the fourth-best player, depending on which version of him shows up consistently.
The 2026 NBA Draft is going to reshape the league. Four future All-Stars in the top five. A lottery that is going to swing the trajectory of every franchise that has been bottom-feeding for the last three years.
Cam Boozer is part of that conversation. He is going to be a foundational piece for whichever team gets him. The only debate is which team that is.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
