Kansas Jayhawks freshman guard Darryn Peterson has played in just eight college basketball games but has made quite an impression in them.
Enough so that several NBA Draft evaluators still have him as their projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
Peterson has not being 100% healthy in any of those eight games — he has battled various health issues this season. And he has yet to play a full game: The most minutes he’s played in any game thus far in the 2025-26 season is 32 minutes vs. TCU.
Peterson’s ailments and aches have included cramping, a hamstring strain, a separate quad issue and an illness. Collectively, these things have caused him to miss nine of KU’s 17 games.
Peterson and the Jayhawks haven’t quite solved the cramping issue, but he’s still averaging 21.8 points and 4.8 rebounds in just 27.3 minutes per game.
Clearly, Peterson is a special talent for Kansas hoops coach Bill Self. But to be the projected top overall pick in this year’s draft — with a loaded class — is no small feat.
Peterson’s competition to become the No. 1 pick includes Duke’s Cameron Boozer and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa.
To understand why draft evaluators and NBA teams remain so high on Peterson despite his limited tape, The Star spoke to Jeremy Woo, an NBA Draft analyst and reporter for ESPN.
Woo’s most recent mock draft has Peterson going No. 1, Dybantsa second and Boozer third.
What makes Peterson special
Woo is no stranger to Peterson. He watched him play at the Chipotle Nationals, a tournament featuring the best high school teams in the country.
Woo noted that he and the many scouts who attended the event saw the same thing: Peterson is very good.
“I think when he’s available you can see that he probably doesn’t feel aggressive getting downhill,” Woo said. “And I would guess some of that has to be do the injury and just the mental part of maybe not feeling you can 100% go.
“But I think he’s been extremely effective, regardless. ... It’s a rare skill when you can see a guy take over a game without dominating necessarily the ball and not taking over the whole flow of the game.
“He has the ability to do that because he’s become such a good shooter. It’s impossible to speed him up. He’s so deliberate as he kind of goes about his business... he makes really hard things look easy. His balance getting into his shot is really, really impressive.”
Woo said he’s seen Peterson play at full health and understands why others might be hesitant — not everyone has seen him play at the top of his game.
As for comparisons to top players in past drafts? Woo believes that Peterson wouldn’t stack up to Spurs’ star Victor Wembanyama, who was picked No. 1-overall in the 2023 NBA Draft.
“There’s a chance we are talking about, if he was full-go, in the Cooper Flagg bucket,“ Woo said. “Cooper Flagg is really good, so maybe like a cut below that, but (Peterson) is a very, very legitimate and always has been No. 1-caliber prospect.“
How does Peterson’s health issues affect his draft stock
Woo isn’t too worried about Peterson’s health issues at the moment. But he did say that missed playing time can affect an NBA team’s perceptions.
“When you miss time, people talk,” Woo said. “This year is unique because you have two other guys playing really, really well. It at least creates dialogue, right? Even if there are general managers that have made their mind up because they feel x,y,z about him, that’s one element.
“But the narrative and what people say publically like on TV, that is something you lose control over when you’re not playing.”
Woo said that coming into the season, Peterson had a bit of separation from Boozer and Dybantsa in the prospect rankings. Woo said Peterson loses a bit of that separation if he’s not playing.
What Woo’s heard from NBA personnel
Of course, with the draft coming later this year, the Peterson hype extends all the way to NBA scouts and executives.
“I think pretty unanimously, everybody was very excited about him coming into the season,” Woo said.
As for whether NBA teams should be concerned about Peterson’s cramping/ health issues?
“I think way it would become a concern is if it revealed that it is some type of long term issue or some debilitating thing or something that he’ll have to deal with his whole career,” Woo said. “That’s when it becomes like, ‘Hey, if we’re splitting hairs between Darryn and whoever you have as your other options — AJ or Boozer or whoever — that’s when it comes into play.
“But again, if it’s something that can be managed and something that is not viewed, and again, some of this is going to come down to how team doctors view it. ... I think as long as it's not revealed to be something long-term concerning, I don’t think it’s going to impact its stock in a way that would be viewed as significant.”
Woo also provided some insight into what NBA teams think of Peterson’s cramping issues.
“I think people know he’s actually hurt,” Woo said. “I think it’s clear he’s actually dealing with something at this point. I think the ambiguity around the initial injury, that never helps in terms of messaging.
“... He strikes me as a guy that’s very competitive in a genuine way. I don’t think he wants to be out or anything like that — I don’t think he’s dodging anything. I think that is separate from how they are managing it, but I don’t think it’s a Darryn problem.”
Depending on which team lands the No. 1 overall selection for this year’s NBA Draft, Peterson could be picked anywhere from first pick to third. Woo and others remain high on Peterson even with his limited college tape.
“I would love to see him play more because I think he’s so good,” Woo said. “The more you play, the more easy it will be to understand why people like him so much.”