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NBA player development coach Phil Beckner has spent plenty of time around superstars. A former college assistant coach to Damian Lillard at Weber State, Beckner has become one of the league’s most popular private trainers, working with Lillard and a number of the NBA’s best. So when he walked into the Legends Events Center in Bryan, Texas, for an AAU tournament in May 2024 and first laid eyes on a 17-year-old Darryn Peterson, Beckner could instantly tell there was something special there. “I’m at [one court] and Darryn walked in and he’s about to play at [a different court] ... he walked in and I’m telling you, his presence and his aura, it almost gave me goose bumps,’ ” Beckner says. “I’ve been in the back tunnels of NBA arenas. I’ve seen Dame Lillard walk by, I’ve had Giannis [Antetokounmpo] walk by. Those dudes, there’s something different to them … I just remember like, ‘Holy cow, this dude is different.’ ” Beckner quickly went into fact-finding mode. Peterson is from Canton, Ohio, and is family friends with CJ McCollum, a longtime teammate of Lillard in Portland and someone Beckner had worked with. Beckner called McCollum, and the two came to the same consensus: Peterson looks like a somebody already. Peterson wasn’t a household name then. He was never the internet sensation Cooper Flagg or AJ Dybantsa became in their high school careers, didn’t have the NBA last name that Cameron Boozer walked around with. But with far less fanfare, Peterson has emerged from an unheralded challenger to the top names in his class into the face of college basketball’s most storied program and the early favorite to go No. 1 in the 2026 NBA draft. “I think he could have played in the NBA last year, to be honest with you,” McCollum says of Peterson. “He’s going to have a special career … and I hope that when it’s all said and done, it’s LeBron [James] coming out of Ohio and then you’re talking about him.” Darryn Peterson’s father, Darryl, scored nearly 1,400 points in his career at Akron as an undersized forward. Darryn was born in January 2007, 10 months after Darryl’s college career ended. Like most players’ sons, the ball was put in Darryn’s hands from a young age. He played basketball and soccer but gravitated to the court over the pitch … though getting him to take the game as seriously as his father was a challenge. Darryn remembers not understanding why his dad was so hard on him about the game, why details mattered so much to him. But Darryl had dreams of his son doing more than he ever could on the court and insisted on pushing Darryn to the max. “People all look at him now and are like, ‘Man, that was just God-given talent. He woke up like that,’ ” Darryl Peterson says. “And I’m like, ‘Man, you guys weren’t with us in third, fourth grade when I was kicking him out the gym and telling him to go be a fireman or a teacher. I love you the same, [but] you know, having those conversations like, ‘Hey, you don’t have to play basketball because I did. You know, we can choose to be anything, but whatever you choose, we’re going to go hard, you know?’ ” The switch flipped for Darryn taking the game more seriously some time around middle school. He could see his game evolving with his father’s teaching. “It started to become clear to me his goal [for me], and it became my goal,” Darryn says. “And all my little old stuff I wasn’t good at, I wanted to perfect it.” “I hope that when it’s all said and done, it’s LeBron [James] coming out of Ohio and then you’re talking about [Darryn Peterson].” CJ McCollum, 12-year NBA veteran But as Darryn dove headfirst into his father’s vision for greatness, the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down. He was wrapping up seventh grade in March 2020 when schools shut down. It would have been easy for his basketball progress to stagnate. Instead, that time helped Darryn take his game to new heights. A friend gave him a key to the gym at the Martin Center (a school-turned-community-center in Canton) and told him to use it whenever he needed it. Darryn and a few friends (including eventual West Virginia guard Kobe Johnson) practically lived there during the pandemic. They’d show up in the morning, get a workout in, relax, eat and repeat. “I remember my mindset being, some of these guys are going to use COVID as an excuse to take a break,” Darryn says. “And I knew this would give me an opportunity to get better than people.” Ohio allowed school basketball that winter as long as players wore a mask. Darryn shredded his middle school competition, and Darryl was always there filming clips to push out however he could. In April 2021, before Darryn even entered high school, he was offered scholarships by Xavier, Pitt and St. John’s. Mission accomplished: Darryn Peterson was well on his way to being the best guard in his high school class. He made the USA Basketball U16 national team in the summer of 2023, teaming up with his future No. 1 pick competition, Dybantsa and Boozer. Peterson had the highest player efficiency rating on the team and made the all-tournament team, but Boozer won MVP honors. That fall, Peterson enrolled for his junior year at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, going the prep school route after essentially outgrowing high school basketball. He later transferred again to Prolific Prep in California for his senior year to play on an even more loaded team. Darryl liked having his son on a college-like schedule with more time in the day for workouts and recovery. And playing regularly against top competition gave Peterson even more fuel to become a star. He ditched sweet tea, soda and Powerade to exclusively drink water, a habit he maintains. By senior year, he dialed in on his diet to cut out fast food, a tough task for a high school player spending plenty of time in airports and hotels. “Seeing him go to that next level of discipline, doing things that I know other 18-year-olds aren’t willing to do, it’s inspiring for me as a dad,” Darryl says. “He’s just the right person for all this.” It’s also a big reason why he chose Kansas, where he’ll play for a two-time championship head coach in Bill Self. He’s the highest-rated recruit to play at Kansas in nearly a decade and arguably the most tantalizing pro prospect to suit up for the Jayhawks under Self, at least since Andrew Wiggins. It took Peterson less than two months on campus for Self to call him “as good a player as I’ve ever coached” and “the best freshman I’ve ever recruited.” Those comments are a measure of his talent but also Peterson’s approach. Peterson wanted a place where he’d be pushed, and Self promised that he’d be on him … and on him hard. “I think players still yearn for discipline,” Self said. “They want to be told what makes them better. The great ones all want that, and he’s certainly a guy that wants to be pushed each and every day and he wants to be told what he can do better, not told what he already does good.” “With greatness comes responsibility,” Beckner says. “He wants to be the best and he wants to be the No. 1 pick and he knows that his talent [alone] is not just going to get him there.” In many ways, Peterson is the total package. He has the size at nearly 6' 6" without shoes with a 6' 10" wingspan, per the most recent measurements. He has the talent, with a preternatural scoring ability that has the upside to lead the NBA one day and emerging playmaking chops to go with it. His approach? It mirrors that of the greats: relentless in his work, dedicated in his preparation. It’s why Beckner broke from his traditional rules of training current NBA players and predraft guys to start working with Peterson. “His humility and maturity is off the freaking charts for his age,” Beckner says. And yet for most of high school, Peterson was an afterthought in the No. 1 player conversation, behind Dybantsa and Boozer. It wasn’t for lack of exposure: Peterson played with USA Basketball, played high-level AAU hoops and shredded the national prep circuit. Peterson insists it didn’t bother him: “I knew in the end, it’d be me.” It ate more at Darryl, but he stayed quiet about it at his son’s request. The tide finally started to turn in early February after a highly anticipated showdown between Peterson’s Prolific Prep and Dybantsa’s Utah Prep. Dybantsa had 49 points. Peterson? A cool 61 in a two-point win. “He was ranked ahead of me, so it was just a statement,” Peterson says. The highlights from that game predictably exploded on the internet, and the full game footage was just as compelling to scouts and evaluators as the clips were to a YouTube audience. “The blinders were on for AJ because if you’ve seen AJ at his best, it is so hard to ignore that as a prospect,” an NBA scout says. “But at the same time, Darryn was always there. And the 61-point game finally put everyone on the map to say, ‘Oh f---, we’re really doing this now.’ ” After that, the hype train finally started to take off. Peterson overtook Dybantsa in the final 247 Sports rankings for the class of 2025. ESPN tabbed Peterson as the early No. 1 pick for the 2026 draft in its first rankings in June. The same anonymous scout called Peterson the best guard prospect in a decade. Scoring 26 points in his unofficial college debut in a much-hyped exhibition against Louisville has done little to quiet the frenzy around Peterson. Peterson is still getting used to the spotlight, but it hasn’t changed his professional approach. “He has approached this in a very mature way where he has let his talent and his commitment do his talking for him,” Self said. “He’s got everyone’s respect.” And Peterson isn’t treating what’s assuredly only a yearlong stint in college as a pit stop. He’s intent on leaving a mark on a Kansas program draped in history. Asked at Big 12 media day in October what success this year looks like, Peterson said the season needed to end in rings: one for the Big 12 and one for the national championship. “I guess they said Kansas has been having a down two years,” Peterson says. “I’m just ready to bring it back.” Doing so will be Peterson’s biggest challenge yet. Self is transparent about the fact that more will be put on Peterson’s plate than any freshman he has coached. The roster around him, while talented, is very inexperienced and lacks a clear second option. The Jayhawks, even with a potential future NBA All-Star leading them, were ranked lower in the preseason AP poll than they have been in more than 15 years. Teams (often of 22- and 23-year-olds) will throw the kitchen sink at him defensively. They’ll rough him up with physicality, send double teams in pick-and-rolls to force the ball out of his hands and try to confuse him with creative coverages. That’s where Peterson hopes his preparation pays off. He and Beckner have been meticulous in watching film of NBA stars to pluck the best of each of their games. Tyrese Maxey’s lethality in transition, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s control of the middle of the floor, Devin Booker’s ability to draw fouls … the list goes on. And it’s a dialogue, not a lecture: Beckner says Peterson brings him ideas to study all the time. “Every team’s best player I try to watch a little bit of because I know this year I’m going to get guarded like no other time in my life,” Peterson says. Regardless of the challenge ahead, it doesn’t take much time around Peterson to start believing he’ll conquer it. Underneath that steely, ultracompetitive on-court persona is a jovial 18-year-old with a smile so bright he says in another life he might have studied to become a dentist. He can disarm you, charm you, make you forget you’re dealing with one of the most talented young basketball players in 20 years. But all that vanishes when he laces up those Adidas shoes and steps onto the hardwood. “When he has a basketball in his hand, he feels like he’s a surgeon,” Darryl says. “He wants to be perfect and he wants to be the best.” “I tell him he’s got a different wire, he’s not just wired different,” Beckner says. “CJ McCollum, he’s got a different wire in his head. I’ve been around Giannis and [Joel] Embiid and worked with both of them, they’ve got a different wire in their head. Darryn has that wire, man. Like there’s something in them that when that wire starts firing, he ain’t taking no for an answer.” More College Basketball on Sports Illustrated
