Yaxel Lendeborg and two Michigan teammates are projected to go inside the top 20 on 2026 NBA Draft night, putting Michigan in position to send three players into the first round. That would put the program on the edge of draft history after a national title run built around a front court that was supposed to be too crowded to work.
Michigan’s three draft picks
Aday Mara, Lendeborg, and Morez Johnson Jr. are the three Michigan players invited to the green room, and all three are projected as first-round picks. Michigan could become the first college program since 2014 to have three non-freshmen taken in the first round, a mark last reached by the UCLA Bruins.
That UCLA group included Zach LaVine, Jordan Adams, and Kyle Anderson, all of whom went in the first round as sophomores or a junior. Michigan’s version has the same kind of age and draft leverage, but it comes from a roster that was remade last spring rather than built over several seasons.
Dusty May’s front court
Dusty May said the three big men were repeatedly told it could not work with three centers, yet they became the core of the starting lineup. He called it risky for both the staff and the players, and said, “I’ll give those guys credit, even after we had two of them signed (Mara and Johnson) and Yaxel decided to come back, they were all still being actively recruited and told they’ll never play and it can’t work with three bigs and they stuck with it and it worked.”
May also said, “Those guys believed in the vision and they believed in each other and that they could find a way to co-exist.” He added, “It was risky for them and for us to have three guys that played center the previous year and have them be the core of our starting lineup.”
Yaxel Lendeborg’s return
Lendeborg could have stayed in the draft last year after a strong combine performance, but he left the University of Alabama-Birmingham and joined Michigan for a chance at a NCAA title. He said, “My decision to go back to school last year and play at Michigan was based solely on my confidence that I could continue to improve and earn my spot not only at Michigan but on an NBA roster.”
He said the year changed the way he saw his game. “I went through a lot of trial and error and last year just definitely helped me out with my confidence level and put me in a better situation for this year.”
Mara’s path was different. He spent two years at UCLA before entering the transfer portal and landing at Michigan, where he averaged 6.4 points in his sophomore season and played 13 minutes per game. May said Mara measured 7-foot-3 barefoot with a 9-foot-9 standing reach, and said NBA teams are getting a player whose size, timing, and rim protection have already shown up in a system that made room for him.
The draft will sort the order, but the broader result is already clear: Michigan has three players with first-round projection, and the program has a shot at a rare first-round trio from the same non-freshman core. Which exact slots Mara, Lendeborg, and Johnson occupy is the only part left for the board to settle.
