ESPN’s Shams Charania: Top of the NBA Draft Is Still Very Much “Up in the Air”

With the playoffs in full swing, Rich pulled Shams Charania toward the calendar's next big event and asked the question every front office is circling: is Oklahoma City trying to trade up?

Charania's answer was a lesson in how the Thunder operate. Every year, they stockpile multiple first-round and second-round picks, and they keep all of their options open. Moves like trading up, he explained, do not really happen until draft night, because you have to see who actually falls to you on the board.

That said, the pattern is real. The Thunder hold the number 12 pick this year, Charania said, and if they like a player sitting at 10, or nine, or eight, they will look hard at moving up. Even climbing a single spot to 11 is on the table. Sam Presti's front office has built its reputation on exactly this kind of optionality, and Charania does not expect that to change as the draft gets closer.

Then Rich moved to the top of the board, framing it as settled business: there is no question who goes number one overall, and that player wants to play for the Wizards.

Charania gently complicated that picture. The feel around the league, he said, points to a familiar cluster of teams shaping the early order, Washington, Utah, Memphis, and Chicago. The names in the mix are familiar too: AJ Dybantsa, Darren Peterson, Caleb Wilson, and Cam Boozer. What is not settled, in his view, is the sequence.

His reporting suggests far more deliberation at the top than the consensus implies. Washington, at number one, is going to consider three, four, even five players for that pick. Utah, at number two, is weighing four or five of its own. That is not the behavior of a front office locked into a name.

Charania went a step further. If Darren Peterson ends up going number one, he asked, would that actually surprise anyone? He did not think so.

The takeaway is a useful corrective for anyone treating this draft as a formality. The board has a shape, and the contenders are known. But the order, Charania made clear, is still very much up in the air, with the draft a few weeks down the road and free agency waiting right behind it.