Brayden Burries is no longer being talked about as a mid-to-late first-round pick. His draft stock has kept climbing all offseason, and the latest mock drafts now put the Arizona freshman in lottery territory, with one projecting him as high as seventh overall to the Atlanta Hawks.
Burries declared for the 2026 NBA Draft after averaging a team-high 16.1 points per game and leading Arizona in total three-pointers. That production came on a team that won 36 games, swept the Big 12 regular season and tournament titles, and reached the Final Four for the first time since 2001.
The rise matters because it reflects how quickly Burries has moved from a prospect viewed as a likely midrange pick into one of the names gaining traction near the top of the board. Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin O’Connor said the Hawks have a 9.8% chance of moving up to the top pick thanks to the Pelicans/Bucks picks swap and noted that they have the sixth-best odds of winning the lottery.
O’Connor also said that if Atlanta stays put, it would make sense to find someone who can fill in for CJ McCollum and someday take over for the 34-year-old guard. That is the tension around Burries now: the performances that lifted him into the lottery have made him a real target, but his exact landing spot in the draft still depends on how the lottery shakes out.
For Burries, the next step is simple enough to say and hard to secure. He has already turned one freshman season into a stronger draft case than almost anyone expected in the fall, and the question now is whether that momentum is enough to carry him into the top seven on draft night.
