The Brooklyn Nets are just moving past their 2025 NBA Draft where they broke an NBA record by selecting five players in the Draft last week. While Brooklyn is most likely worried about what they can do to maximize the players they took in the 2025 class, this current rebuild is going to last for at least a few years, unless they’re able to draft a superstar soon.

The Nets are projected to take Duke forward Cameron Boozer with the third overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, according to a mock draft from ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo. Brooklyn is coming off a 2024-25 season in which they finished with a 26-56 record, the sixth-worst in the league, that unluckily got them the eighth overall pick, but the ESPN duo is expecting the Nets to finally have a premium pick.

“Boozer is one of the most productive high school players we’ve ever seen, with a winning résumé unmatched by any prospect in recent memory,” Givony wrote when talking about Boozer, the son of former NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer. “He has an elite feel for the game, and can handle, pass, shoot and guard every position. He brings relentless physicality, crashes the glass and takes pride in dominating his matchups inside.”

At this point in the 2026 NBA Draft calendar, it seems that Boozer is the third-best player on the board for teams to draft after Kansas guard Darryn Peterson and BYU wing AJ Dybantsa. While Brooklyn would prefer to have the first overall pick that gives them the choice between Peterson and Dybantsa, the Washington Wizards and the Utah Jazz, respectively, are expected to be worse than the Nets.

The Nets made their first Lottery pick since 2010 when they picked BYU guard Egor Demin No. 8 overall, a decision that was met with a sizable amount of scrutiny due to Brooklyn having five first-round picks along with Demin being expected to go later in the Draft. Either way, the Nets won’t be able to think about Boozer or any other player if their 2026 pick is outside of the top-8 as that pick will go to the 2025 NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder.

This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets projected to take Duke F Cameron Boozer No. 3 in 2026 NBA Draft