Kansas guard Darryn Peterson will meet with the Washington Wizards before the 2026 NBA Draft. But he won’t make any other pre-draft visits to teams holding one of the top selections, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania and Jeremy Woo.

Meeting with the Wizards certainly makes sense, as Washington holds the No. 1 overall selection. Throughout his freshman season, the 6-foot-5 Peterson was viewed as a strong candidate to be the draft’s top pick.

However, despite averaging 20.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game while shooting 38% on 165 3-point attempts in his lone season with the Jayhawks, Peterson played in only 24 of his team’s 35 games due to hamstring and ankle injuries, in addition to full-body cramps.

Even when he did play, the cramping caused Peterson to take himself out of games, including a Feb. 19 Big 12 matchup versus Oklahoma State in which he played 18 minutes. Earlier in the season, he was also a late scratch before a game with then-No. 1 Arizona due to flu-like symptoms.

In early May, Peterson told ESPN that the cramping was attributable to taking high doses of creatine, which he had not taken before playing in college.

That has raised questions among evaluators and executives regarding Peterson’s physical condition and perhaps even his mental makeup. Teams with high draft picks needing a sure thing may be hesitant to select Peterson because of those concerns.

Having to address such questions may be why Peterson is opting not to meet with the Utah Jazz, Memphis Grizzlies and Chicago Bulls, the next three teams in the NBA Draft order. The view from his representatives may be that he can only hurt his draft status with pre-draft workouts.

Yet Peterson’s camp may be declining to meet with other teams at the top of the draft because the belief is that the Wizards will select him with the top pick, according to KSL Sports’ Ben Peterson.

That would go against most of the projections that have been made since the end of the college basketball season leading up to the NBA Draft. Yet the Kansas City Star also reported that Peterson has impressed teams with his interviews.

In his latest mock draft, Yahoo Sports’ Kevin O’Connor projects Peterson to go No. 3 to the Memphis Grizzlies for those very reasons despite his obvious scoring talent.

“Questions about his burst, his availability, and what exactly is going on under the hood are going to define how NBA front offices feel about him at the top of this draft,” O’Connor wrote.

On his NBA Draft big board, O’Connor also ranks Peterson third behind Duke’s Cameron Boozer and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, who’s expected to be the No. 1 overall pick by the Wizards.

The Jazz would not necessarily be deterred by Peterson not meeting with them. Utah selected Rutgers’ Ace Bailey last year with the No. 5 pick amid rumors that he would not report to the team if he was selected.