The NCAA and other leagues worldwide are officially in full swing, and the NBA season is approaching the first-quarter mark. With that, NBA scouts are hard at work looking for their teams’ next potential stars and core pieces. As a part of Sports Business Classroom’s 2026 NBA Draft series, the following are lead guards to watch ahead of June’s draft.

Lead guards primarily bring the ball up and initiate their team’s offense. While they can be scorers and elite defenders, the one constant is that they are typically the player crossing the half-court line with the ball.

First Round:

- Mikel Brown Jr. – Louisville
- Labaron Philon – Alabama
- Darius Acuff Jr. – Arkansas
- Bennett Stirtz – Iowa
- Kingston Flemings – Houston

Second Round:

- Cayden Boozer – Duke
- Sergio de Larrea – Valencia (Spain)
- Christian Anderson – Texas Tech
- Boogie Fland – Florida
- Jaden Bradley – Arizona
- Tahaad Pettiford – Auburn
- Xaivian Lee – Florida

G League/Undrafted:

- Braden Smith – Purdue
- Jaland Lowe – Kentucky
- Anthony Robinson II – Missouri
- Tamin Lipsey – Iowa State
- Donovan Dent – UCLA
- Milos Uzan – Houston

Mikel Brown Jr. is showing potential to be the greatest freshman in Louisville’s history. He plays with an incredibly consistent pace, whether it’s moving the ball up or navigating through off-ball screens. Although this draft is headlined with the three-headed monster of Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa, and Cameron Boozer, Brown should not be overlooked as a future NBA All-Star. He gets to the rim as well as any guard in the country, using sharp ballhandling and quick burst to beat his defenders, with the acrobatics required to finish tough shots with either hand. He is also a fearless attacker, currently shooting the fifth-most free throws per game in the ACC (8.2) while knocking them down at an elite 87.8% clip. Some concerns lie in Brown’s size (6’4”, 175 lbs) and rate of turnovers (3.4 per game), but he will only be 19 years old when drafted and has plenty of time to put on some muscle and clean up his passing efficiency at the next level.

Bennett Stirtz exploded onto the NBA draft scene during his junior year at Drake in 2024-25, following two seasons in Division II with Northwest Missouri State. Stirtz has continued that development in his senior year at Iowa. Stirtz plays a fundamentally sound and mature game. He does not jump off the screen athletically, but he plays like he is always in the driver’s seat. He consistently sees the open man, takes care of the ball, shoots when he is open, cuts through the lane, and finishes around the rim at a high rate. Stirtz is the type of player who will make an immediate impact in his rookie season with the team that drafts him.

Sergio de Larrea highlights a limited international class for the 2026 draft. De Larrea has intriguing upside as a combo guard in the NBA. Not only has he grown as a shooter, knocking down threes at a 50% clip through 13 games this season with Valencia, but he has also grown into a reliable primary ballhandler. He displayed an excellent combination of playing with and without the ball while earning the Spanish Supercup MVP. While de Larrea’s lack of athleticism will likely lower his ceiling, he has quickly proven in Spain that he has what it takes to be a reliable role player for years to come. Defensively, de Larrea has room for growth. He has difficulty reading the offense and easily loses focus. This is the difference between having a three-year career and a 13-year career. If he finds a way to kick into another gear on this end, along with his playmaking and shooting, he should have a great chance to become a regular for an NBA rotation.

Jaden Bradley is coming off a breakout junior year as a full-time starter with Arizona, and through his first few weeks as a senior, it is looking as though he is primed for an even bigger year with Caleb Love moving on to the NBA. Bradley has done a great job picking up the slack with Love’s departure. He is also showing what he can do with a strong interior presence, like Koa Peat on the floor, who is drawing so much attention to the paint that Bradley can create around him. Bradley is not a high-volume three-point shooter (1.3 attempts per game), but shoots an impressive 55.6 percent. He will need to become a more established threat from the perimeter to keep the defense honest at the next level. Bradley will have to get creative to get involved in the offense off the ball without a three-point shot. His size may help him on the inside, but a three-point shot would open the game up for him and his teammates, and give him a chance to become a high-level rotation player.

Braden Smith has been a key part of Purdue’s program over the past three seasons and has picked up right where he left off in his historic junior campaign, where he won a handful of awards, including the Bob Cousy award for the best point guard in the NCAA. Smith is as talented a pure point guard as they come. His craftiness as a playmaker and scorer is next-level, allowing him to be a huge difference-maker despite his 6’0” frame. He adds a career 39.4% three-point shooting on top of this. What could stop him from getting drafted is both his size and his ball-dominant style of play. Someone who lacks positional versatility, vertical athleticism, and overall size is just a difficult sell to teams in the modern NBA, especially when they are already 22 on draft night. This is not a knock on Smith’s game, rather a mold of player that teams are not necessarily searching for these days. The NBA is full of highly talented lead guards, and Smith still has a lot more to prove to earn the trust and respect to lead a team of the best basketball players in the world.