Three major sports have held their annual drafts over the past 30 days, and two of the No. 1 overall picks — Victor Wembanyama in the NBA and Connor Bedard in the NHL — were hyped as generational talents. And it wasn’t that long ago that we heard similar talk about Trevor Lawrence in the NFL, Adley Rutschman in MLB and Sabrina Ionescu in the WNBA. When we set out to find the all-time top prospect in each sport, it left us wondering who will be the next elite player to come up through the ranks and land the rare “can’t miss” label.
So we asked our draft experts and analysts — Jonathan Givony, Kiley McDaniel, Matt Miller, M.A. Voepel and Greg Wyshynski — to pick out the next big-time prospects in all five major draft sports. Some of them will be draft-eligible as early as next year, while others will have to wait a few years to hear their names called. But every player we listed has one thing in common: You’ll be hearing a lot about them in the lead-up to their respective drafts.
Who is next? Let’s look at the potential generational prospects who are already getting buzz.
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MLB | NBA | NFL | NHL | WNBA
Check out our all-time draft hype bracket
