Clippers load up late in 2026 NBA Draft as Wizards, Atlanta take fliers on international bigs
Los Angeles owned the 36th and 52nd picks on Wednesday; Washington took Izaiyah Nelson at 51 as second-round business proceeded rapidly across the league.
The Los Angeles Clippers added two prospects to a second-round haul on Wednesday as the 2026 NBA Draft worked through the back half of its order, with the Washington Wizards and Atlanta Hawks also swinging on international and collegiate bigs before the evening closed out. The 36th and 52nd selections both landed with Los Angeles, while Washington took Izaiyah Nelson at 51 and Atlanta grabbed Estonian forward Henri Veesaar earlier in the round.
The Clippers' activity is the throughline of the night. Two picks inside the top 55 is an unusually aggressive second-round posture, and the choices themselves — the Florida State forward Baba Miller at 36 and the Estonian Veesaar at 52, per draft broadcast wires — are a study in profile diversity. Miller is a long, switchable defender who reportedly tested well at the combine; Veesaar is a 7-foot stretch big with overseas polish. Stacking both on one roster is the kind of low-cost, high-variance move that front offices make when their tax-sheet reality forecloses free-agent fireworks.
Second-round economics, briefly
Second-round picks are not what they used to be. The old two-way contract and Exhibit 10 machinery has turned picks 31 through 58 into something closer to futures options than roster certainties: cheap, team-controlled, and frequently stashed overseas or shuttled to the G League. The Clippers, with a deep veteran core and limited cap flexibility, are exactly the kind of organisation for whom this draft segment is the draft.
The Wizards, in a different stage of the curve, used the 51st pick on Izaiyah Nelson — a developmental big out of a domestic college programme, taken with one of two second-round selections Washington owned. Washington is rebuilding; Nelson's selection sits squarely inside that posture.
What we know and what we don't
The picks themselves are confirmed through the live draft broadcast and the league's distributed draft ticker — the kind of information that propagates through official NBA channels and is mirrored by every wire service. The Clippers' motives, the contractual shape of any two-way deal, and the overseas arrangements that often accompany European selections are not in the broadcast material. Standard caveats apply: rosters move, Exhibit 10 deals are sometimes converted, sometimes withdrawn, and a player taken at 52 will not be the same player two summers from now.
The international angle is worth flagging without overstating it. Atlanta's selection of Veesaar, an Estonian prospect with significant professional experience, and Los Angeles's doubling down at the same position a round apart suggest that the European development pipeline is being read by front offices as a credible supply line for size and skill — a continuation of a trend that has been visible in the league for half a decade rather than a sudden shift.
Stakes
For Los Angeles, the bet is roster optionality. For Washington, the bet is asset accumulation. For Atlanta, the bet is pipeline continuity. None of these picks will move market lines on Thursday morning. The relevant question — as it always is with the back third of the first round — is which front office reads its own roster and its cap sheet most honestly, and which one is drafting to look busy. The answer won't arrive for a season and a half.
This publication read the second-round action as a low-key but instructive night for the league's mid-tier roster-builders — Los Angeles and Washington both used the back half of the draft to add size and upside without committing guaranteed money, a posture consistent with their respective cap realities. The international angle on Veesaar is real but not new, and the broadcast wires did not surface any late-round trade activity that would reframe either selection.
Wire provenance
This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:
- https://t.me/NBALive
- https://t.me/NBALive
- https://t.me/NBALive
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_NBA_draft
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-way_contract