Is High School Recruiting Dead?

We are officially in the heat of summer, and so we have a lot to cover, both in terms of things that have just recently happened and spinning ahead, particularly going to take a look at summertime, recruiting, what we're looking forward to that.

You're going to be seeing a lot of coverage of these events They're called the AAU tournaments.

Of course, it's not officially the Amateur Athletic Union, but you get the gist.

Lots going on.

Andy, good to see you, my man.

I think we start with what just happened, and that's the 2026 NBA draft.

It's in the books.

You were on hand covering it for us at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Kind of an interesting vibe going on there.

Andy, I want to get your general takeaways of the draft.

Let me start with this because...

You know, I was doing an interview a couple of days ago with my longtime friend Maggie Gray for her new podcast, and she was asking about the NBA draft.

I kind of made the point that, you know, I didn't think that there were necessarily any generational players along the lines of a Wembley, even a Cooper flag in this draft.

Obviously, we had a very firm four players at the top that were projected to go.

They went in the order that they were projected to go.

in terms of A.J. Debonza, Darren Peterson, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson.

I think those guys are really good NBA players.

They'll be in the league for a long time, win a lot of games, maybe even play in a few All-Star games.

But again, I didn't see necessarily a generational talent.

I think that what's distinguished was distinguishable about this draft is the depth I think there are a lot of really really good players a lot of really really good freshmen in the first round but you know when I said that Maggie seemed a little bit surprised because we've been talking about this draft is like oh my god this draft class is amazing again I think it's the number of good players the depth the number of great freshmen who went on the first round but not necessarily generational players like a Wemby Cooper flag what do you think was I was I off base on that or would you agree

I agree 100%.

Look, the draft lacked drama because it was very predictable, but that doesn't mean that... that it was disappointing because I think this freshman class especially lived up to the hype, met the moment.

I think this freshman class will go down as one of the most productive freshman classes in men's college basketball we've seen in quite some time.

But yeah, it's the depth, not just in the first round, but in the second round of players that I'm going to be interested to see maybe five years from now, how many of the 60 players contribute.

because it's not always a high number that actually contribute for a significant number of years, games, you name it.