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

No. 6 overall pick, New Orleans Pelicans, 2013

Nerlens Noel fell to No. 6 in a weak draft because he tore his ACL midway through his lone college season, and that caused him to be medically red-flagged by a few teams. But prior to the injury, he was the choice for the No. 1 pick. A potentially game-changing rim protector, Noel’s excellent reflexes and agility made him perhaps the best defensive big to come through the John Calipari Kentucky system, and he projected to be a very good modern NBA defensive big, good at traditional rim protection and perimeter defense. The ACL injury certainly sapped that quickness to a degree, and it’s a shame that we never got to see Noel fully unleashed.

The offensive side of the ball also became a much bigger bugaboo than it was expected to be in terms of his overall outcome. Very few were under the impression that shooting or elite pick-and-roll play were in Noel’s future, but he at least looked like a competent face-up big, with a little bit of handle to go with his agility and touch. Those limitations ended up killing the functionality of that face-up game, though, as did Noel getting pushed to the wayside by two subsequent draft picks in Jahlil Okafor and Joel Embiid who were far better in that role. In a different situation where he wasn’t forced into playing heavy 4 minutes, Noel may have turned out better. But the offensive side of the ball being a near-zero is what kept him from staying the No. 1 prospect in that draft, a low bar to clear relative to the rest of this list.