Potential top-10 pick Louisville G Mikel Brown Jr. declares for 2026 NBA Draft

Louisville guard Mikel Brown Jr. is off to the NBA.

The freshman guard announced Tuesday that he would enter the 2026 NBA Draft. Brown is a consensus top-10 pick in the June draft and was projected to go No. 10 to the Milwaukee Bucks in Yahoo Sports’ April 2 mock draft.

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Brown, who turned 20 on April 3, averaged 18.2 points, 4.7 assists and 3.3 rebounds across 21 games in 2025-26 for the Cardinals. He was the team’s second-leading scorer behind Ryan Conwell, but did not play in the month of March because of a back injury.

“Obviously, it’s just been a dream of mine to be able to be in this position,” Brown told Andscape about his draft decision. “The little kid in me would freaking scream just to know that I have an opportunity to play at the highest level, which has been a dream of mine since I started picking up a basketball. So yeah, I’ll be taking the next step.”

He sat out the ACC tournament with the hope of playing in the NCAA tournament as Louisville was a No. 6 seed. However, Brown ended up missing both of the Cardinals’ March Madness games as Louisville lost in the second round to No. 3 Michigan State.

Brown dealt with the back injury for much of the season — he missed eight games earlier in the year because of back issues.

When he was on the court, Brown showed why he was one of the best prospects in a loaded draft class. He set the ACC’s freshman record for points in a game when he dropped 45 in a win over NC State on Feb. 9. He followed that game up with back-to-back 29-point games against Baylor and SMU.

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His back injury was a reason why Kevin O’Connor had Brown at the back of the top 10 in that mock draft a week ago. Here’s what O’Connor had to say about Brown.

When Brown is in the zone, he has an unstoppable pull-up jumper, an ambidextrous finishing ability and the quick reads to rifle passes before the defense has time to react. He had a 45-point breakout performance in February, but a back injury dogged him throughout his freshman year. The Bucks don’t have much going in the developmental department, so taking a big swing on Brown would make sense. If Brown had stayed healthy, he might be going much higher. And maybe he’ll play his way into that through predraft workouts. But for now, the absences muddy the evaluation and leave real questions about his consistency that may not get answered until he’s fully healthy.

Louisville went 24-11 in 2025-26 and was 16-5 in the 21 games that Brown played.