{"id":638168,"date":"2026-04-29T09:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T09:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638168\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T09:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T09:36:21","slug":"lopezs-nba-draft-stock-surges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/638168\/","title":{"rendered":"Lopez\u2019s NBA Draft stock surges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery less than two weeks away, ESPN has released its latest mock draft featuring one of the NBL\u2019s top rising stars.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand Breakers\u2019 Next Star Karim Lopez has once again been ranked in the lottery, being slotted at pick 11 by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48582124\/2026-nba-mock-draft-top-30-first-round-picks-nba-lottery-dybantsa-boozer-peterson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Woo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This would have the talented Mexican forward being selected by the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n<p>The Warriors have a history of selecting NBL Next Stars, picking Sydney\u2019s Alex Toohey in the 52nd spot of last year\u2019s draft (following a trade with the Phoenix Suns).<\/p>\n<p>During a Next Stars Update episode, General Manager Next Stars Recruitment Liam Santamaria discussed what it would mean for the program for Lopez to join the likes of LaMelo Ball, Josh Giddey and Alex Sarr as lottery picks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis camp is feeling really positive about where he sits in that (Draft) space right now,&#8221; Santamaria said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, it&#8217;s going to be exciting to see where he lands and see how he hits the ground running.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The NBA Draft lottery takes place on May 11 AEST, ahead of the actual event on June 24-25.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full story here &gt;&gt; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48582124\/2026-nba-mock-draft-top-30-first-round-picks-nba-lottery-dybantsa-boozer-peterson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2026 NBA mock draft: Risers, fallers ahead of the May 10 lottery<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777455381_171_69d47a153353ed2bdf7cd807_Article Banner_1920x250 (1).jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery less than two weeks away, ESPN has released its latest mock draft&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-638168","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\/638168","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=638168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}