The Step Back Composite NBA Draft Big Board: The best 30 draft prospects of the 2010s

No. 2 overall pick, Los Angeles Lakers, 2016

Brandon Ingram has disappointed to a degree since coming out in 2016, but his thin frame was always his biggest limiting factor, and he may still be on the upward trajectory of attempting to overcome it. Just from a mainstream hype perspective, Ingram was certainly thought of as a future star coming out, because of his flashes of pull-up shooting and three-level scoring ability came packaged in a frame that looked suspiciously like Kevin Durant‘s a decade prior. There were real arguments over whether Ingram, not Ben Simmons, should have been the first pick by the Philadelphia 76ers in that draft.

But pushing things out to the macro level of the last decade, Ingram somewhat gets lost in the shuffle here. He did have clear flaws, even beyond the frame questions; he struggled to consistently defend in a team context at Duke, and his shooting mechanics, while promising, certainly had some kinks to be ironed out, as we found out during his Lakers tenure. Projecting him as an All-Star level scorer was smart, but he wasn’t as well-developed as you’d like to see if you’re drafting a star talent scorer. In, say, the 2015 or 2018 drafts, it’s doubtful Ingram gets No. 1 pick consideration, and he was certainly helped by the narrative arc of LSU’s season imploding around Ben Simmons in 2016. Simmons was clearly a better prospect in terms of overall talent.

Ingram was a very good prospect, and he seems to be following the trajectory that was envisioned for him by most coming out of the draft. But he definitely was not on the level of Simmons as a prospect, and the unique circumstances of Simmons’ college year allowed Ingram to benefit from some getting out over their skis.