It's NBA Draft announcement season, and everyone knows exactly what that means for BYU's consensus All-American and freshman superstar AJ Dybantsa. He's been a top-three lock since day one, no matter who you ask (save for a few 'look how smart I am' draft evaluators. You know who you are), and the draft serves as his coronation.
But for senior guard Richie Saunders, whose season ended prematurely with an ACL tear, finding a home through the draft hasn't been a guarantee.
The NBA is weary of older players like Saunders who approach the professional threshold as more of a "finished product" than the budding potential of 18 and 19-year-olds whose upside thrusts them to the top of the draft order.
Though Saunders has been told that his ACL tear doesn't change the way NBA teams evaluate him, that doesn't mean they evaluate him entirely positively. He's been projected at the back end of the second round all season -- if he's on the board at all.
But in a recent mock draft by Yahoo Sports' Kevin O'Connor, he projects that BYU fans will be having a great draft night beyond just watching their one-and-done mega star early off the board.
New mock draft! It’s a chaotic week in the NBA. First rounders are going back to college. Friday’s the declaration deadline. So I made a chaotic mock. What if each 14% team falls out of the top four? What if Indiana loses its pick? What if OKC moves up? https://t.co/IvJil8HYPx
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnor) April 22, 2026
BYU prospects take the stage in NBA Mock Draft
It's important to note that O'Connor's mock draft is built on the idea of chaos. Specifically, what might happen if the NBA Draft lottery's ping pong balls defy the laws of nature, probability, and reason, and spit out perhaps the most outrageous and rage-inducing outcome possible for the teams at the bottom, and launch teams like Oklahoma City (who own the Clippers' lottery pick, one of five firsts they collected from LA, courtesy of the Paul George trade which sent future MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to OKC for pennies) into the top four.
In O'Connor's projection, heads roll, tears are shed, and (most importantly) we're forced to evaluate the best players in the current draft class from a whole new perspective. Starting with...
1. AJ Dybantsa (to Chicago)
Yep, the Bulls won the draft lottery (after decades of mediocrity), and luck into perhaps the best prospect the league has seen since Victor Wembanyama. Yeah, I went there.
"At 6-foot-9, players his size are not supposed to move with the herky-jerky elasticity that Dybantsa does," O'Connor raved as he crafted Dybantsa's draft profile. "He can dunk over defenders. He can stop on a dime and fade away from midrange. And he can catch fire from behind the line too. BYU head coach Kevin Young said Dybantsa’s scoring talent is 'in rare air with some of the greats.' Over the course of his freshman year, he began to make dramatic progress as a passer, too, as shown with his cross-court, pinpoint passes to find shooters."
Alongside their core of Matas Buzelis and Josh Giddey, AJ Dybantsa would be the Bulls' savior during a post-Jordan hangover that simply refuses to break. He's the prize of the draft, and the Bulls are a kid on Christmas.
59. Richie Saunders (to Minnesota)
Saunders hears his name on draft night, according to O'Connor, who praised the guard for his hard-nosed play style, abundant energy, and lightning-quick trigger finger for catch-and-shoot three-point jump shots. His downside is exactly what we already knew: he's so old for a rookie that he's practically collecting his pension, and tearing his ACL leaves room for concern.
Another notable detail in O'Connor's mock, current BYU target and Italian center Luigi Suigo comes off the board 36th overall to Los Angeles, pitching the three-hurling 7-footer as the ideal replacement for Brook Lopez.
If Suigo winds up at BYU, you could say that this mock draft projected three BYU players to be selected this season, which is funny to me.
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