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Michigan Built a Champion Out of Castoffs — Now Three of Them Are Headed to the Lottery
A year ago, none of them were first-round locks. A couple weren’t on casual fans’ radar at all. Now Yaxel Lendeborg, Aday Mara, and Morez Johnson Jr. are all projected to come off the board inside the top 20 of the 2026 NBA Draft — and the thread tying them together is one of the best stories in college basketball.
Michigan cut down the nets in April, its first national title since 1989, beating UConn with a starting five made up entirely of transfers. Dusty May built one of the nation’s top-ranked portal classes, then turned a roster of other programs’ leftovers into champions. Three of those pieces played their way into the first round. Here’s how each got there.
Yaxel Lendeborg: The Mid-Major Star Who Bet on Himself
Lendeborg starred for two seasons at UAB — 17.7 points, 11.4 rebounds (fourth in the nation), and 4.2 assists as a junior — but he was a stat-sheet monster nobody outside the AAC ever watched. Projected as a late-first/second-rounder, he withdrew from the 2025 draft and transferred to Michigan, betting that a year under May — who’d just turned Danny Wolf into a first-rounder — would lift his stock. It did, and then some: he anchored a national champion, was named Big Ten Player of the Year and a consensus All-American, and is now the highest-projected Wolverine of the three, trending toward the lottery and mocked as high as the top 12. At 23, his age is the only knock; everything else is plug-and-play ready.
Aday Mara: The Forgotten Five-Star
Mara arrived in American basketball as a five-star, the No. 15 recruit in the 2023 class — then nearly vanished. Two seasons at UCLA brought just 6.4 points and 4 rebounds in about 13 minutes a night, and he slid off draft boards entirely. Michigan was the reset. Handed real minutes, the 7-foot-3 Spaniard became one of the most impactful big men in the country — a genuine rim protector and a shockingly skilled passer for his size, posting around 12 points, 7 rebounds, and better than 2.5 blocks a game. Then the combine made scouts gasp: he measured 7’3″ barefoot with a 7’6″ wingspan and a 9’9″ standing reach, among the longest ever recorded at the event. Mocks range from the lottery to the late first, but a true 7-3 with that feel and timing is exactly the upside swing teams take in the teens.
Morez Johnson Jr.: The Glue Guy Who Rose at the Combine
Johnson was a useful freshman at Illinois — 7 points and 6.7 rebounds off the bench — but hardly a name. At Michigan he became the heartbeat of a champion, starting every game and leading the team on the glass at better than seven boards a night. He also flashed range that wasn’t supposed to be there, knocking down 12 of 35 from three as the season wore on. Then the combine sent him soaring: elite athletic testing and the kind of length teams covet pushed him from a fringe name into the first-round conversation. He’s the youngest of the three at 20, plays an unflashy, NBA-ready role, and more than one evaluator thinks he could end up the best pro of the bunch.
Why It Matters
Three top-20 picks out of one frontcourt is rare. Three top-20 picks who, twelve months ago, were a mid-major secret, a buried five-star, and a bench role player is almost unheard of. It’s a referendum on the modern transfer portal — and on Dusty May, who has now turned overlooked talent into draft capital two years running. When the 2026 draft arrives in late June, watch how high all three climb. The lesson is already written: at Michigan, “unknown” turned out to be a starting point, not a ceiling.
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