Three additional international players have withdrawn from consideration as early-entry candidates for the 2026 NBA Draft, the league said in an official NBA.com release.
The NBA said Pavle Backo of Mega in Serbia, Francesco Ferrari of Virtus Bologna in Italy and Luigi Suigo of Mega in Serbia removed their names from the draft pool. The update leaves 26 non-international college players and five international players as early-entry candidates.
NBA Draft Pool Gets Three Fewer International Names
The latest withdrawals come after 35 non-international college players and three international players had previously withdrawn from the 2026 draft process, according to NBA.com. The new update affects only the international early-entry list.
Backo is listed by the NBA at 7-foot with a 2007 date of birth. Ferrari is listed at 6-9 with a 2005 date of birth, while Suigo is listed at 7-2 with a 2007 date of birth.
The remaining college early-entry group includes Darius Acuff Jr. of Arkansas, Cameron Boozer of Duke, AJ Dybantsa of BYU, Aday Mara and Morez Johnson Jr. of Michigan, Darryn Peterson of Kansas and Caleb Wilson of North Carolina. The NBA also lists five international early-entry candidates still in the pool: Mohammad Amini, Vsevolod Ishchenko, Jack Kayil, Sergio de Larrea and Karim Lopez.
Barclays Center Hosts Two Draft Nights
The first round of the 2026 NBA Draft is scheduled for Tuesday, June 23 at 8 p.m. ET at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, with ABC and ESPN carrying the broadcast. The second round is scheduled for Wednesday, June 24 at the same venue on ESPN and the ESPN App.
Those dates matter because the early-entry list is the league's official boundary for who remains available through this part of the draft calendar. Teams can keep working through evaluations, but the player pool is now smaller than it was before the three international withdrawals.
The update is administrative rather than dramatic, which is exactly why the names and counts matter. The NBA has narrowed the early-entry board before draft week without announcing any change to the draft order, venue or broadcast plan.