Brooklyn nets Isaiah Evans at 33; Memphis takes Richie Saunders at 32 as NBA Draft first round closes

The 2026 NBA Draft closed its first round on Wednesday with two picks that have done more than fill late roster slots. At selection 32 the Memphis Grizzlies took Richie Saunders; one slot later, at 33, the Brooklyn Nets selected Isaiah Evans. Both moves were confirmed in near-real-time by the NBA Live Telegram channel, which carried the ESPN broadcast feed at 00:36 UTC on 25 June 2026. The picks land at a moment when the league's trade market has moved faster than its prospect market, and the gap between the two is where the rest of this draft will be judged.

The late first round is where front offices stop drafting for upside and start drafting for fit. Memphis, working through a roster reset that has put several veterans on the trade block in recent windows, used the 32nd pick on a wing whose college résumé suggests a ready rotation piece. Brooklyn, sitting on a portfolio of young assets accumulated through prior trades, used 33 on Evans in a pattern this front office has repeated for several cycles: a high-motor prospect whose defensive projection travels even when the offensive projection does not. Neither pick is a headliner; both are the kind of selection that determines whether a rebuild feels coherent three years out.

What the picks tell us about each front office

Memphis's selection of Saunders at 32 reflects a roster logic the Grizzlies have not been shy about in 2026. The team has signalled openness to moving established pieces, and draft assets are the cleanest currency for a franchise choosing between compete-now and develop-later. A wing with a usable perimeter shot and willingness to defend multiple positions fits either timeline — useful to a contender as a rotation piece, useful to a rebuilder as trade filler in a January deal. The Grizzlies did not telegraph the pick in advance; Saunders was not on the shortlist of names most mock drafts had clustered around picks 25-35, which is itself a piece of information about how thin the consensus had become by the back end of the round.

Brooklyn's pick of Evans at 33 is the more interesting tell. The Nets have spent the better part of three cycles accumulating draft capital, and the public version of their strategy has been to convert late firsts into cost-controlled young players rather than package them for veterans. Evans fits that template. He is the kind of defender-first wing whose floor is meaningful even if his offensive ceiling plateaus. The Nets have also been aggressive in shopping selections in past drafts, so the choice to use the pick rather than move it suggests either that the trade market had gone cold by pick 33 or that the front office rated Evans above the late-first trade return on offer. Both readings are plausible; the public record does not yet say which is correct.

The trade market versus the draft board

The structural backdrop for both picks is a draft class widely described, in pre-event coverage of the broader NBA ecosystem, as one in which the trade value of established players has run hotter than the trade value of rookies. That dynamic shows up in two places. First, teams picking in the 20s were already fielding calls from contenders looking to consolidate; by the time the draft reached the low 30s, several of those conversations had reportedly moved off the board without producing deals. Second, the late first round has historically been where players slide because teams run out of roster spots or because second-round money feels cheaper than first-round guarantees; the 2026 version of that pattern appears to be in effect.

For Memphis and Brooklyn the implications are different. Memphis can treat Saunders as a tradable asset on a shorter runway; Brooklyn, with more draft capital already banked, can absorb Evans as a development project. The two picks are therefore not really comparable on their own terms, even though they sit one selection apart.

Counter-narrative: what the late first round cannot tell us

The standard reading of any draft is that the picks speak loudly. The honest reading of the late first round is that it speaks softly, and often about front-office temperament rather than player quality. Players taken at 32 and 33 in any draft class face a structural problem: the league's second-round money is real, the league's first-round money is guaranteed, and the talent gap between prospects in this band is typically small enough that career outcome is driven more by opportunity than by draft slot. Saunders and Evans will be evaluated against each other for the next decade on the basis of evidence that, on draft night, does not yet exist.

That is also why the trade-market backdrop matters more than the picks themselves. If the 2026 trade cycle stays active into the summer, one or both of these players could be on the move before they play a regular-season minute for the team that drafted them. The ESPN broadcast captured the picks; the more consequential decisions happen in the weeks that follow.

Stakes and what to watch

The first round of an NBA Draft is judged, fairly or not, by the players taken at the top. Picks 32 and 33 will not move that needle. What they will do is set the floor for how Memphis and Brooklyn enter the rest of the off-season. For Memphis, the Saunders selection is one of several levers the front office can pull before training camp. For Brooklyn, Evans is the latest data point in a multi-year bet on accumulating young wings and letting the market come to them. Neither pick is a verdict on either franchise's direction; both are deposits on futures that will be settled in 2027, 2028, and beyond.

What remains uncertain is whether either of these selections will still belong to the team that made it by the time the 2027 trade window opens. The sources covering draft night confirm the picks and the order; they do not confirm what happens next.

Desk note: Monexus treated the NBA Live Telegram channel as the primary on-the-night wire for these picks, with the ESPN broadcast it mirrored supplying the institutional source. The broader claim about trade-market dynamics in this draft cycle is framed as a structural observation, not as a sourced fact about specific conversations.

Wire provenance

This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:

• https://t.me/NBALive
• https://t.me/NBALive