{"id":636503,"date":"2026-04-28T15:41:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/636503\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T15:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:41:16","slug":"new-nba-mock-draft-2026-released-by-espns-jeremy-woo-whats-changed-since-march-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/636503\/","title":{"rendered":"New NBA Mock Draft 2026 Released by ESPN’s Jeremy Woo, What’s Changed Since March Madness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two weeks away from the 2026 NBA draft lottery, ESPN’s Jeremy Woo<\/a> has released a new mock with some interesting changes since his previous projection. <\/p>\n

The updated mock from Woo features AJ Dybantsa going No. 1 overall to the Washington Wizards, followed by Darryn Peterson to the Indiana Pacers and Cameron Boozer to the Brooklyn Nets. <\/p>\n

Here are the projected top 10 picks in Woo’s mock.<\/p>\n

In his previous mock<\/a> released on March 11, Woo had the same top three players in a slightly different order. That one had Peterson going No. 1, followed by Dybantsa at two. Caleb Wilson remains consistent at No. 4. <\/p>\n

The biggest riser in the top 10 is Darius Acuff Jr., who jumped up two spots to the Sacramento Kings at No. 5 in this mock. <\/p>\n

Acuff’s move up comes after an exceptional run in March that started in the SEC tournament and continued through the Sweet 16. He averaged 29.8 points on 45.0 percent three-point shooting, 6.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game in those six starts for Arkansas. <\/p>\n

B\/R’s Jonathan Wasserman<\/a>, who also had Acuff going No. 5 in his most recent mock, noted that perceptions of the Razorbacks star “shifted” over the final two months of the college season because his “diverse, accurate shotmaking, advantage-creating handles and quickness, finishing craft and convincing playmaking IQ” have alleviated some concerns about his lack of size and defensive ability. <\/p>\n

In moving Acuff up, Woo dropped Houston guard Kingston Flemings down two spots to the Atlanta Hawks at No. 7. The 19-year-old was more up and down in tournament play than Acuff, scoring 11 points or fewer and shooting 40 percent or worse in three of six games between the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments. <\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest surprise since the end of the NCAA tournament was Braylon Mullins’ announcement<\/a> that he will be returning to Connecticut for his sophomore season. <\/p>\n

Mullins was projected as a late-lottery pick at No. 13 by Woo entering the NCAA tournament. His absence from the class combined with an excellent March from Yaxel Lendeborg opened the door for the Michigan standout to push his way into the lottery to the Oklahoma City Thunder at 12. <\/p>\n

The next big hurdle leading up to the draft will be on May 10 when the lottery takes place to determine the order of the top 14 picks. The Wizards, Pacers and Nets have the best odds for the No. 1 overall selection at 14 percent. <\/p>\n

Washington (17-65) had the NBA’s worst record during the 2025-26 season. The last time the team with the worst record won the lottery was 2018 when the Phoenix Suns finished 21-61 and selected Deandre Ayton. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two weeks away from the 2026 NBA draft lottery, ESPN’s Jeremy Woo has released a new mock with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-636503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}